168 WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



have first made their nest, that they seldom spend a night at any distance 

 from the latter, and often resort to its immediate neighbourhood. Whilst 

 asleep, they emit a loud hissing sort of snore, which is heard at the dis- 

 tance of a hundred yards, when the weather is perfectly calm. Yet, so 

 light is their sleep, that the cracking of a stick under the foot of a person 

 immediately wakens them. When it is attempted to smoke them while 

 thus roosted and asleep, they start up and sail off withovit uttering any 

 sound, but return next evening to the same spot. 



Before steam-navigation commenced on our western rivers, these 

 Eagles were extremely abundant there, particularly in the lower parts of 

 the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the adjoining streams. I have seen hundreds 

 going down from the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans, when it was not 

 at all difficult to shoot them. Now, however, their number is consider- 

 ably diminished, the game on which they were in the habit of feeding, 

 having been forced to seek refuge from the persecution of man farther in 

 the wilderness. Many, however, are still observed on these rivers, parti- 

 cularly along the shores of the Mississippi. 



In concluding this account of the White-headed Eagle, suffer me, 

 kind reader, to say how much I grieve that it should have been selected 

 as the Emblem of my Country. The opinion of our great Franklin on 

 this subject, as it perfectly coincides with my own, I shall here present to 

 you. " For my part," says he, in one of his letters, " I wish the Bald 

 Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is 

 a bird of bad moral character ; he does not get his living honestly ; you 

 may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for 

 himself, he watches the labour of the Fishing-Hawk ; and when that dili- 

 gent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the 

 support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, and 

 takes it from him. With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but, 

 like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally 

 poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward : the Httle 

 King Bird, not bigger than a Sparrow, attacks him boldly, and drives 

 him out of the district. He is, therefore, by no means a proper emblem 

 for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the 

 King Birds from our counti'y ; though exactly fit for that order of 

 knights which the French call Chevaliers dV7idustrie.'''' 



It is only necessary for me to add, that the name by which this bird 

 is universally known in America is that of Bald Eagle, an erroneous de- 



