440 AVES— EAGLE. 



becomes shriller as she takes to wing and sails around, sometimes making 

 a rapid descent, as if aiming directly for you, but checking her course, and 

 sweeping past at a short distance over head, her wings making a loud 

 whizzing in the air. 



The flight of the fish-hawk, his manoeuvres while in search of fish, and 

 his manner of seizing his prey, are deserving of particular notice. In leav- 

 ing the nest, he usually flies direct till he comes to the sea, then sails around 

 in easy curving lines, turning sometimes in the air as on a pivot, apparently 

 without the least exertion, rarely moving the wings ; his legs extended in a 

 straight line behind, and his remarkable length and curvature or bend of 

 wing, distinguishing him from all other hawks. The height at which he 

 thus elegantly glides is various, from one to two hundred feet, sometimes 

 much higher, all the while calmly reconnoitering the deep below. Suddenly 

 he is seen to check his course, as if struck by a particular object, Avhich he 

 seems to survey for a few moments with such steadiness, that he appears 

 fixed in air, flapping his wings. This object, however, he abandons, and he 

 is again seen saUing 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 regions of the air, 

 where he glides about in all the ease and majesty of his species. 



At once from this sublime serial flight he descends like a perpendicular 

 torrent, plunging into the sea with a loud rushing sound, and with the cer- 

 tainty 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 Avould do, 

 and directs his heavy, laborious course directly for land. A shad was once 

 taken from a fish-hawk near Great Egg harbor, on which he had begun to 

 regale himself, the remainder of which weighed six pounds. Another hawk 

 at the same place was seen with a flounder in his grasp, which struggled 

 and shook him so that he dropped it on the shore. The flounder was 

 picked up, and served a whole family for dinner. It is singular that the 

 hawk never descends to pick up a fish which he happens to drop either on 

 the land or on the water. 



