58 SEA EAGLE. 



these are found to be alike, their plumage being more or less 

 diluted with white. In some, the chin, breast and tail-coverts, 

 are of a deep brown; in others nearly white; and in all evident- 

 ly unfixed, and varying to a pure white. Their place and man- 

 ner of building, on high trees, in the neighbourhood of lakes, 

 large rivers, or the ocean, exactly similar to the Bald Eagle, also 

 strengthens the belief. At the celebrated cataract of Niagara, 

 great numbers of these birds, called there Gray Eagles, are con- 

 tinually seen sailing high and majestically over the watery tu- 

 mult, in company with the Bald Eagles, eagerly watching for 

 the mangled carcasses of those animals that have been hurried 

 over the precipice, and cast up on the rocks below, by the vio- 

 lence of the rapids. These are some of the circumstances on 

 which my suspicions of the identity of those two birds are 

 founded. In some future part of the work, I hope to be able to 

 speak with more certainty on this subject. 



Were we disposed, after the manner of some, to substitute 

 for plain matters of fact all the narratives, conjectures, and 

 fanciful theories of travellers, voyagers, compilers, &c. relative 

 to the history of the Eagle, the volumes of these writers, from 

 Aristotle down to his admirer the Count de Buffon, would fur- 

 nish abundant materials for this purpose. But the author of the 

 present work feels no ambition to excite surprise and astonish- 

 ment at the expense of truth, or to attempt to elevate and em- 

 bellish his subject beyond the plain realities of nature. On this 

 account, he cannot assent to the assertion, however eloquently 

 made, in the celebrated parallel drawn by the French naturalist 

 between the Lion and the Eagle, viz. that the Eagle, like the Li- 

 on, "disdains the possession of that property which is not the fruit 

 of his own industry, and rejects with contempt the prey which 

 is not procured by his own exertions;" since the very reverse 

 of this is the case in the conduct of the Bald and the Sea Eagle, 

 who, during the summer months, are the constant plunderers 

 of the Osprey or Fish-Hawk, by whose industry alone both are 

 usually fed. Nor that " though famished for want of prey , he 

 disdains to feed on carrion," since we have ourselves seen the 



