FISH HAWK 157 



off steadily in its orbit over the woods northwest, with 

 the slightest possible undulation of its wings, — a noble 

 planetary motion, like Saturn with its ring seen edge- 

 wise. It is so rare that we see a large body self-sus- 

 tained in the air. While crows sat still and silent and 

 confessed their lord. Through my glass I saw the out- 

 lines of this sphere against the sky, trembling with life 

 and power as it skimmed the topmost twigs of the wood 

 toward some more solitary oak amid the meadows. To 

 my naked eye it showed only so much black as a crow 

 in its talons might. Was it not the white-headed eagle 

 in the state when it is called the sea eagle ? ^ Perhaps 

 its neck-feathers were erected. 



April 14, 1856. See from my window a fish hawk 

 flying high west of the house, cutting off the bend be- 

 tween Willow Bay and the meadow, in front of the 

 house, between one vernal lake and another. He sud- 

 denly wheels and, straightening out his long, narrow 

 wings, makes one circle high above the last meadow, as 

 if he had caught a glimpse of a fish beneath, and then 

 continues his course down the river. 



P. M. — Sail to hill by Bedford line. 



Wind southwest and pretty strong; sky overcast; 

 weather cool. Start up a fish hawk from near the swamp 

 white oaks southwest of the Island, undoubtedly the 

 one of the morning. I now see that this is a much 

 darker bird, both above and beneath, than that bird of 

 the 6th. It flies quite low, surveying the water, in an 

 undulating, buoyant manner, like a marsh hawk, or 



^ [Wilson, in his American Ornithology, gave an account of the " sea 

 eagle," which he suspected to be the young of the bald eagle.] 



