164 WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



a description of it under a new and very curious name. The proprietor 

 of this famed bird valued it at one hundred dollars, I at one ! 



While at the lovely village of Columbia, in South Carolina, Dr 

 Robert W. Gibbes, a man of taste and talent, as well as one who loves 

 the science of birds for its own sake, kept one of these Eagles for some 

 time in his aviary, and, being desirous of granting it more liberty, cut 

 across all the primary quills of one of its wings, and turned it loose in his 

 yard. No sooner was the bird at liberty, than it deliberately pulled out. 

 the stump of each mutilated quill, in consequence of which the wing was 

 soon furnished anew. The DQctor told me that his first intention was to 

 draw them out himself, but this he found so difficult that he gave it up. 

 Do birds possess a power of contracting the sheaths of their feathers so 

 powerfully as to prevent their being pulled without great force ? 



Since my earliest acquaintance with birds, I have felt assured of the ig- 

 noble spirit of the White-headed Eagle, and the following fact strengthens 

 the impression. William W. Kunhardt, Esq. of Charleston, S. C, 

 kept one of these birds (a full-grown male) for many months. He one 

 day put a game-cock into its cage, to see how the prisoner would conduct 

 himself. The gallant cock at once set to, and beat the eagle in the 

 " handsomest manner," his opponent giving in at each blow, without pay- 

 ing the least regard to the established rules of combat. Other cocks of 

 the common race proved equally formidable to the degraded robber of the 

 Fish-Hawk. 



The White-headed Eagle seldom utters its piercing cry without throw- 

 ing its head backward until it nearly touches the feathers of the back. 

 It then opens its bill, and its tongue is seen to move as it emits its notes, 

 of which five or six are delivered in rapid succession. Although loud and 

 disagreeable when heard at hand, they have a kind of melancholy softness 

 when listened to at a great distance. When these birds are irritated, and 

 on the wing, they often thrust forth their talons, opening and closing 

 them, as if threatening to tear the object of their anger in pieces. 



The synonyms and necessary references having been already given in 

 the first volume (page 169), it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Wil- 

 son figured and described the young of the White-headed Eagle under 

 the name of the Sea Eagle, Falco ossifragus, although not without ex- 

 pressing doubts. 



