THE GREAT SEA-EAGLE. 35 



chiefly of fishes and aquatic birds. These they usually 

 carry off to devour at their leisure either on the rocks 

 or in their nests. But occasionally, when all other 

 resources fail, they fix themselves upon tlie dead car- 

 cases of animals which are thrown upon the shore, 

 and their manner of feeding under such circumstances 

 closely resembles the disgusting voracity of the Vul- 

 tures. For hours and sometimes for days together 

 they remain stationary upon the putrid carrion, and 

 quit it only when it no longer affords the means of 

 satiating the cravings of their appetite. 



Much confusion has existed in the synonymy of the 

 present bird, the difference of the colours of the plu- 

 mage in the various stages of its growth, having misled 

 authors so far as to induce them to record it under 

 several distinct specific names. Three of these were 

 almost universally admitted until aljout twenty years 

 ago, when M. Frederic Cuvier published in the Annals 

 of the French Museum the result of his observations 

 on the individuals confined in the Jardin des Plantes, 

 which had convinced him of the propriety of uniting 

 the Falco ossifragus, albicaudus, and albicilla of Gmelin 

 under one common name. The differences which were 

 formerly supposed to exist between these birds have 

 been recognised by almost every subsequent writer as 

 those of age alone. In its earlier stages its beak is of 

 a bluish horn-colour; its head and neck deep brown; 

 the plumage of its upper surface brownish black, with 

 a mixture of whitish or ash-coloured spots on the back 

 and tail. In this state it is the Falco ossifragus of 

 systematic writers. As it advances in age, about the 

 third or fourth year, the head and neck become of an 

 ashy brown; the beak gradually loses its bluish tinge 

 and changes to a pale yellow ; the white spots on the 

 back disappear; and the tail is of a imiform grayish 



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