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THE BIRD OF WASHINGTON. 



Falco Washingtonii. 



PLATE XI. Male. 



It" was in the month of February 1814, that I obtained the first sight 



/of this noble bird, and never shall I forget the delight which it gave me. 



Not even Herschel, when he discovered the planet which bears his name, 



1 could have experienced more rapturous feelings. We were on a trading 



\ voyage, ascending the Upper Mississippi. The keen wintry blasts 



I whistled around us, and the cold from which I suffered had, in a great de- 



I gree, extinguished the deep interest which, at other seasons, this niagni- 



! ficent river has been wont to awake in me. I lay stretched beside our 



patroon. The safety of the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that 



[ called my attention was the multitude of ducks, of different species, ac- 



j companied by vast flocks of swans, which from time to time passed us. 



My patroon, a Canadian, had been engaged many years in the fur trade. 



i He was a man of much intelligence, and, perceiving that these birds had 



engaged my curiosity, seemed anxious to find some new object to divert 



i me. An eagle flew over us. " How fortunate !" he exclaimed ; " this 



\ is what I could have wished. Look, sir ! the Great Eagle, and the only 



I one I have seen since I left the lakes." I was instantly on my feet, and 



/ ! having observed it attentively, concluded, as I lost it in the distance, that 



y it was a species quite new to me. My patroon assured me that such 



' birds were indeed rare ; that they sometimes followed the hunters, to feed 



on the entrails of animals which they had killed, when the lakes were 



frozen over, but that when the lakes were open, they would dive in the 



\^ daytime after fish, and snatch them up in the manner of the Fishing Hawk ; 



and that they roosted generally on the shelves of the rocks, where they 



built their nests, of which he had discovered several by the quantity of 



white dung scattered below. 



Convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists, I felt particular- 

 ly anxious to learn its habits, and to discover in what particulars it dif- 

 fered from the rest of its genus, i My next meeting with this bird was a / 

 few years afterwards, whilst engaged in collecting crayfish on one of those 

 flats which border and divide Green River, in Kentucky, near its junc- 



~? 



