484 BIKDS OF ILLINOIS. 



The following is from Mr. Nelson's "List of the Bii'ds of North- 

 eastern Illinois" {Bull. Essex Lust. VIII., 1876, p. 120). 



"Not very uncommon during winter. Arrives in November and 

 departs early in spring. Formerly nested throughout the State. 

 Dr. Hoy records the breeding of a pair of these birds in a tree 

 near Eacine in 1851. (Wis. Agr. Eep., 1852.) In December, 1874, 

 while hunting Prairie Chickens in a field a few miles south of Chi- 

 cago, my friend, Mr. T. Morris, was suddenly attacked with great 

 fury by a pair of these birds, they darting so close that had he 

 been prepared he could easily have touched the first one with his 

 gun. As it arose to renew the attack he fu-ed a charge of number 

 six shot, and brought it down, dead. The second one then darted 

 at him, and so rapidly that he did not fire until it had turned and 

 was soaring up, but so near that the charge passed through the 

 primaries in a body, disabUng but not injuring the bird, which was 

 then captured alive. The cause of this attack was explained by 

 the proximity of a carcass upon which these birds had been feed- 

 ing. The craw of the dead eagle contained a large quantity of 

 carrion, as I learned upon skinning it." 



Genus HALI^ETUS Savigny. 



Balid.eins Savignt, Desc. de 1' Egypto, 1809, 254. Typo, Falco albicilla Linn. 



Gen. Char. Form robust, and organization powerful, as in Aquila; size large. Bill 

 very largo, usually somewhat inflated, the chord of the arch of the culmen more than 

 twice the length of the cere on top; commissure with a more or less distinct festoon and 

 sinuation behind it. Nostril oval, obliquely vertical. Feet robust and strong, the tarsus 

 less than one and a half times the middle toe; tarsus feathered in front and on the sides 

 for about one half its length; front of the tarsus and top of the toes with an imper- 

 fectly continuous scries of transverse scutella;, entirely interrupted in the region of the 

 digito-tarsal joint ; the other portions covered with roundish, somewhat granular, scales, 

 these larger on the posterior face. Claws large, strongly curved, and more obtuse, and 

 less graduated in size, than in Aguila. No distinct web between outer and middle toes. 

 Wing very large, the primaries well developed and strong; third to fifth <iuiU longest; 

 first longer than the ninth; outer five to six with inner webs deeply emarginated. Tail 

 short and rounded, with twelve feathers. Feathers of the neck, all round, lanceolate. 



North America possesses but two species of this very strongly 

 characterized genus, and one of these claims a place in our fauna 

 solely on account of its occurrence in Greenland. The other is the 

 common Bald Eagle, the distribution of which includes the entire 

 continent with the exception of the tropical portions. 



