3 

 2. OSSIFRAGUS. SEA EAGLE. 



F. Fusco-ferrugineus, cruribus seminudis flavis, rec- 

 tricibus albo-nebulosis. Shaw. 



Bill bluish black; cere, sides of the mouth and 

 orbits yellow. Irides hazel.* The feathers on the 

 head and neck are long and dusky, brown at the 

 ends, tawny towards the base, and white at the roots; 

 the whole body dark brown, intermixed with rust 

 colour ; the tail and its coverts mottled with yellow- 

 ish white, dark and faint ash-coloured brown ; the 

 quills are of a dark chocolate colour; the shafts 

 white towards the base ; the legs strong and yellow, 

 feathered very little below the knee ; the claws black; 

 the inner one two inches long, much hooked. Mon- 

 tagus Ornithological Dictionary. 



Its prey is principally fish. Scotland and Ire- 

 land. 



* Several peculiarities are found in the eyes of birds ; two 

 of them tending to facilitate the change upon which the 

 adjustment of the eye to different distances depends, the 

 one is a bony, yet in most species a flexible rim or hoop, 

 surrounding the broadest part of the eye, which confining 

 the action of the muscles to that part, increases the effect 

 of their lateral pressure upon the orb, by which pressure its 

 axis is elongated for the purpose of looking at very near 

 objects, the other is, an additional muscle, called the Mar- 

 supium (or Pecten) to draw upon occasion the crystaline 

 lens back, and fit the same eye for the viewing of very 

 distant objects. Paley's Nat. Theology. 



