WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 297 



as if it had received a general coating of a thin dilution of 

 gum-arabic, and presenting less of the downy gloss exhibited 

 in the upper part of the White-headed Eagle's plumage. 

 The male bird weighs fourteen and a half pounds avoirdupois, 

 and measures three feet seven inches in length, and ten feet 

 two inches in extent." 



This completes Mr. Audubon's account of what he alwaj^s 

 considered his greatest discovery, the Bird of "Washington. 

 We remarked, that the fact of its being a discovery at all has 

 been warmly disputed by the highest American authorities. 

 The name is, however, too good a one to be lost ; and if Mr. 

 Audubon has made a mistake in figuring the wrong bird, he 

 certainly has made none in regard to the fact of a new 

 species. It must be a very scarce one of course, as speci- 

 mens have been so difficult to obtain. He, himself, in the 

 long years of wandering which made up the sum of his 

 vigilant and active life, met with only one which it proved 

 possible for him to obtain, though he mentions several in- 

 stances of its having been seen on the wing. 



The Fish-hawk or Osprey seems to be most naturally re- 

 garded as the transition species between the eagles, the 

 falcons proper, and the hawks. Partaking, as it does, of 

 many of the leading characteristics of these groups, it is yet 

 clearly entitled to a separate and distinct classification as the 

 Osprey. Indeed the dispute concerning the separate place 

 and absolute identification of this bird, has, from the earliest 

 period of which we have any accounts of its being noticed, 

 given rise to an infinite series of humorous complexities be- 

 tween the sense of Cabinet Naturalists, ancient and more 

 modern, and the clear demonstrations of the practical Field 

 Naturalist of the present day. Alexander Wilson has set 

 this forth with such admirable tact that we cannot forbear 

 quoting him here though it not the less illustrates the slow 

 progress of science towards truth, for me to mention that the 

 extract occurs in an article upon the Sea-Eagle, (Falco Ossi- 

 fragus,) which he has thus classified, yet with a saving ex- 



