OF NEW ENGLAND. 371 



the snow white Gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy 

 Tringae coursing along the sands ; trains of Ducks streaming 

 over the surface ; silent and watchful Cranes, intent and wa- 

 ding ; clamorous Crows, and all the winged multitudes that 

 subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. 

 High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests 

 all his attention. B} r his wide curvature of wing, and sudden 

 suspension in the air, he knows him to be the Fish-Hawk, 

 settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kin- 

 dles at the sight, and balancing himself, with half opened 

 wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as 

 an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his atten- 

 tion, the roar of its wings reaching his ear as it disappears in 

 the deep, making the surges foam around ! At this moment 

 the eager looks of the Eagle are all ardor ; and levelling his 

 neck for flight, he sees the Fish-Hawk once more emerge, 

 struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air with screams 

 of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, launch- 

 ing into the air, instantly gives chace, soon gains on the Fish- 

 Hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, dis- 

 playing in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial 

 evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapid lj r advances, and is 

 just on the point of reaching his opponent, when with a sudden 

 scream probably of despair and honest execration, the latter 

 drops his fish ; the Eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to 

 take a .more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches 

 it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten 

 booty silently away to the woods." 



" When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 

 and perseverance of the Fish-Hawks from their neighbourhood, 

 and forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in 

 search of young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. 

 In the lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the 

 inhabitants raise vast herds of those animals, complaints of 

 this kind are very general against him. He also destroys 

 young lambs in the early part of spring ; and will sometimes 

 attack old sickly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes." 



" The appetite of the Bald Eagle, tho habituated to long 



