440 AVES—EAGLE. 
becomes snriller 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 maneuvres while in search of fish, and 
his manner of seizing his prey, are deserving of particular notice. In leay- 
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 
straignt line behind, and his remarkable length and curvature or bend of 
wing, distinguishing him from all other hawks. The height at whic: 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, which 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 
1s 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 regions of the air, 
where he glides about in all the ease and majesty of his species. : 
At once from this sublime erial flight he descends like a perpendicular 
torrent, plunging into the sea with a loud rushing sound, and with the cer- 
tainty ofa rifle. In afew 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, 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 founder 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. 
