166 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, 



Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the 

 distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings 

 reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making 

 the surges foam around. At this moment the eager 

 looks of the eagle are all ardour; and, levelling his 

 neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk once more 

 emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting in 

 the air with screams of exultation. These are the 

 signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, 

 instantly gives chase,, soon gains on the fish-hawk, 

 each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, 

 displaying in the rencontres the most elegant and 

 sublime aerial evolutions. The unencumbered eagle 

 rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching 

 his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably 

 of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his 

 fish ; the eagle, poising himself for a moment, as if 

 to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, 

 snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and 

 bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods." 

 Those birds of the eagle kind which fish on their 

 own account (all of them rob when they can) pursue 

 nearly the same method of dashing from a height 

 upon their prey in the water ; the blagre (Hatiaetus 

 blagrus, SAVIGNY), for example, of Africa, and the 

 vociferous eagle (Haliaetus vocifer) called the bald 

 buzzard in M. Vaillant's Travels. The latter usually 

 establishes what may be justly called a fishery at the 

 mouth of some considerable river, over \vhich it 

 hovers high in the air till it perceives a fish, when it 

 dashes down striking the water and plunging its 

 whole body beneath the surface in order to secure its 

 prey, usually a fish of considerable size, which it 

 carries to some neighbouring rock or the trunk of 

 some branchless tree*. So constantly does it keep to 

 the same eating station, that M. Vaillant procured a 

 * Oiseaux d'Afrique, i, ] 8. 



