116 THE SEA-EAGLE. 



tions, which are, indeed, too marked for occasioning 

 any danger of confounding the one with the other. 



The SEA-EAGLE (falco albicilla) is a powerful bird, 

 second only to the golden eagle, and probably exceed- 

 ing that in rapacity, as well as in the range of its food. 

 The dimensions of this eagle have already been men- 

 tioned. Though approaching in size to the golden 

 eagle, it is not nearly so compact or indicative of 

 strength, neither is it of the same rich colour. The 

 upper part is gray-brown with darker spots, the lower 

 part nearly cinerous, with blackish spots ; the tail in 

 the full grown bird is white, which has led some to 

 confound it with the young of the golden eagle ; and it 

 has a beard or tuft of feathers at the root of the under 

 mandible. 



As fishing is their regular means of subsistence, they 

 are chiefly found near the sea, or the shores of great 

 lakes, where they build their nests in the most inacces- 

 sible precipices, and the female lays one egg, or at the 

 most two. The eggs are white, and about the size of 

 those of a goose. Like the other rapacious birds, they 

 can remain a long time without food. Selby mentions 

 one that had existed in a state of want for five weeks, 

 at the end of which time it had begun to gnaw the flesh 

 from its own wings. 



Few exhibitions in nature are finer than the fishing 

 of this powerful bird. Not adapted for walking into 

 the shallow water for prey like the heron, the sea-eagle 

 courses over the surface. From her unapproachable 

 haunt in the trees or the crags the latter is, when 

 she can obtain it, her most admired residence she 



