TASTE OF PISCIVOROUS BIRDS. 165 



escapes ; for the violence of the dash, and its wide- 

 spread wings, by striking and covering the surface 

 of the water, make it boil and whirl, and at the same 

 time stun the fish, and deprive it of the power of 

 escape *. According to Nieremberg these birds spend 

 in fishing the hours of the morning and evening*, 

 when the finny tribe are most in motion, and choose 

 the places where they are most plentiful ; and it is not 

 a little amusing, he adds, to behold them sweeping 

 the water, rising a few fathoms above it, falling with 

 their neck extended and their sac half full, then 

 ascending with effort to drop again, and continuing 

 this exertion till the sac is quite filled t- 



The white-headed eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus, 

 SAVIGNY), as described by Wilson, seems to be the 

 prince of fishing birds. " Elevated," he says, " on 

 the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that com- 

 mands a wide view of the neighbouring shore and 

 ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions 

 of the various feathered tribes that pursue their 

 busy avocations below ; the snow-white gulls slowly 

 winnowing the air ; the busy sandpipers (Tringce) 

 coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming 

 over the surface ; silent and watchful cranes, intent 

 and wading ; clamorous crows, and all the winged 

 multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast 

 liquid magazine of nature. High over all these 

 hovers one whose actions instantly arrests all his 

 attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and 

 sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the 

 fish-hawk (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY), settling 

 over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye 

 kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half 

 opened wings on the branch, he watches the result. 



* Petr. Martyr, Nov. Orb. Decad, i, 6; apud Montbeillard, 

 Oiseaux. 

 t Hist, Nat. x, 223. 



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