THE BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



HALLEETUS ALBICILLA (Linnceus). 

 WHITE-TAILED EAGLE. 



NEARLY every autumn or winter affords specimens of this 

 eagle in immature plumage, and it appears also at times 

 late in spring, but in no instance have I known the adult 

 bird to occur in this county.* The predominance of the 

 young amongst all migratory Raptorial species that visit 

 our coast in autumn, including peregrines, ospreys, 

 merlins, buzzards, &c., is attributable, no doubt, in a 

 great degree, to the fact of the old birds in this class 

 driving their young away from their own nesting places 

 as soon as they are able to provide for themselves, to 

 seek in other districts a home and a helpmate, and 

 in their turn to practise the customs of their ancestors. 

 That this marked characteristic of the Raptorial tribe 



* In the autumn of 1864, a skin of JET. albicilla was brought to 

 one of our Norwich bird-stuffers, with a statement that the bird 

 had been shot on Breydon during the previous winter. This 

 bird exhibited the white tail and other indications of adult 

 plumage, and from this and other appearances, more than doubting 

 its history, I at once instituted enquiries at Yarmouth. From a 

 resident ornithologist there, upon whose information I can im- 

 plicitly rely, I ascertained that no sea eagle had been either seen 

 or shot on Breydon in the winter of 1863, and that the bird in 

 question was brought by a fisherman about Christmas-time from 

 Norway as a skin, and had been offered to various collectors in 

 Yarmouth for 1. 



