BRITISH ZOOLOGISTS. 133 



remarkable length, and curvature or bend of wing, dis- 

 tinguishing him from all other hawks. The height at 

 which he thus elegantly glides is various, from one 

 hundred to one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet, 

 sometimes much higher, all the while calmly reconnoit- 

 ring the face of the deep below. Suddenly he is seen to 

 check his course, as if struck by a particular object, which 

 he seems to survey for a few moments with such steadi- 

 ness, that he appears fixed in air, flapping his wings. 

 This object, however, he abandons; or rather the fish he 

 had in his eye has disappeared, and he is again seen 

 sailing around as before. Now his attention is again 

 arrested, and he descends with great rapidity ; but ere he 

 reaches the surface, shoots off on another course, as if 

 ashamed that a second victim had escaped him. He now 

 sails at a short height above the surface, and by a zigzag 

 descent, and without seeming to dip his feet in the water, 

 seizes a. fish, which, after carrying a short distance, he 

 probably drops, or yields up to the bald eagle ; and again 

 ascends, by easy spiral circles, to the higher circles of the 

 air, where he glides about in all the ease and majesty of 

 his species. At once, from this sublime aerial height, he 

 descends like a perpendicular torrent, plunging into the 

 sea with a loud rushing sound, and with the certainty of 

 a rifle. In a few moments he emerges, bearing in his 

 claws his struggling prey, which he always carries head 

 foremost, and, having risen a few feet above the surface, 

 shakes himself as a water-spaniel would do, and directs 

 his heavy and laborious course directly for the land. If 

 the wind blow hard, and his nest lie in the quarter from 

 whence it comes, it is amusing to observe with what 



