196 NOTES ON THE 
rarity, by the dark band on his white tail. But generally if 
one would study him, he must go to the uninhabited and almost 
uninhabitable parts of the earth, far above the ordinary planes 
of animated nature, and there contemplate him in the sublimest 
solitude. As he climbs to the very clouds, and penetrates be- 
hind the veil of the storm, even the mountains are low down 
in respect to him, and he seems to know and care but little 
about the world.” 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Large; tarsi densely feathered to toes; head and neck be- 
hind, light brownish-fulvous, varying in shade in different spec- 
imens, frequently light orange-fulvous, generally darker; tail at 
base white, which color frequently occupies the greater part of 
the tail; other terminal portion glossy black; all other parts rich 
purplish-brown, frequently very dark, and nearly clear blaclc 
on the under parts of the body; primaries shining black; 
secondaries purplish-brown; tibize and tarsi brownish-fulvous, 
generally mixed with dark-ashy; cere and toes yellow. 
Length (female), 33 to 40; wing, 25; tail, 15. 
Habitat, North America. 
HALLEETUS LEUCOCEPHALUS (L.). (852.) 
BALD EAGLE. 
This least understood, most honored, and most abused of 
the entire class to which it belongs, ,has honored or dishonored 
the North Star State, by making it emphatically the place of 
his abode. No forest with a right to the name, but claims the 
enviable or unenviable distinction of harboring the whole 
family of this species. Its harsh screams are familiar to the 
woodman during the nidifying season, and many a cabin in the 
solitudes of the deep, dark forests, has its young eagle chained 
to its gable, or the convenient out-house. Its habit of breed- 
ing year after year on the same filthy old nest, even after 
having been repeatedly robbed of its eggs or young, gives 
unusual opportunities for noting its habits. 
Some of these birds seem to go a little further south, as is 
indicated by their return in spring, but not all for they are 
often observed through the entire winter. About the last 
week in Feb. some of them commence preparations for nest- 
ing by repairing the old structure, or building another en- 
tirely new. Fragments of dry limbs a yard in length, and 
from one to two inches in thickness are laid into the forks of a 
large tree, at least forty feet from the ground, and more fre- 
quently sixty feet. These are criss-crossed in a rude, but 
really very ingenious manner, and secured in their position by 
