62 SEA EAGLE. 



NOTE In Wilson's history of the Bald Eagle, he confident- 

 ly asserts that it is the same species as the Sea Eagle, in a dif- 

 erent stage of colour. In his account of the latter, he adduces 

 additional reasons for his belief, which is at variance with the 

 opinions of some of the most respectable naturalists of Europe. 

 We have no hesitation, from our own experience, in pronounc- 

 ing these birds to be the same; and deem it unnecessary to add 

 any thing further on the subject, as the reasoning of Wilson is 

 conclusive. 



Our author describes an Eagle's nest, which he visited, in 

 company with the writer of this article, on the eighteenth of 

 May, 1812. It was then empty; but from every appearance a 

 brood had been hatched and reared in it that season. The fol- 

 lowing year, on the first day of March, a friend of ours took 

 from the same nest three eggs, the largest of which measured 

 three inches and a quarter in length, two and a quarter in di- 

 ameter, upwards of seven in circumference, and weighed four 

 ounces five drams, apothecaries weight; the colour a dirty yel- 

 lowish white one was of a very pale bluish white; the young 

 were perfectly formed. Such was the solicitude of the female 

 to preserve her eggs, that she did not abandon the nest, until 

 several blows, with an axe, had been given the tree. 



In the history of Lewis and Clark's Expedition, we find the 

 following account of an Eagle's nest, which must have added 

 not a little to the picturesque effect of the magnificent scenery 

 at the Falls of the Missouri: 



" Just below the upper pitch is a little island in the middle 

 of the river, well covered with timber. Here on a cottonWood 

 tree an Eagle had fixed its nest, and seemed the undisputed 

 mistress of a spot, to contest whose dominion neither man nor 

 beast would venture across the gulfs that surround it, and which 

 is further secured by the mist rising from the falls."* 



The Bald Eagle was observed, by Lewis and Clark, during 

 their whole route to the Pacific Ocean. 



* Hist, of the Exped. vol. i, p. 264. 



