

48 WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges 

 foam around ! At this moment the eager looks of the Eagle are 

 all ardour; and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the Fish- 

 Hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mount- 

 ing in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal 

 for our hero, who, lanching into the air, instantly gives chace, 

 soon gains on the Fish-Hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount 

 above the other, displaying in these rencounters the most elegant 

 and sublime aerial evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapidly 

 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. 



These predatory attacks, and defensive manoeuvres, of the 

 Eagle and the Fish-Hawk, are matters of daily observation along 

 the whole of our seacoast, from Florida to New England; and 

 frequently excite great interest in the spectators. Sympathy, 

 however, on this, as on most other occasions, generally sides 

 with the honest and laborious sufferer, in opposition to the at- 

 tacks of power, injustice and rapacity; qualities for which our 

 hero is so generally notorious, and which, in his superior man, 

 are certainly detestable. As for the feelings of the poor fish, 

 they seem altogether out of the question. 



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 inhab- 

 itants 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 sick- 

 ly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes. 



In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the 

 manners of the Bald Eagle, many accounts have reached me 



