466 GOLDEN EAGLE. 



and completely prostrated me for some days ; but, thanks to my heavenly 

 Preserver, and the immediate and unremitting attention of my most worthy 

 friends Drs Parkman, Shattuck, and Warren, I was soon restored to 

 health, and enabled to pursue my labours. The drawing of this Eagle took 

 me fourteen days, and I had never before laboured so incessantly except- 

 ing at that of the Wild Turkey. 



The Golden Eagle, although a permanent resident in the United 

 States, is of rare occurrence there, it being seldom that one sees more 

 than a pair or two in the course of a year, unless he be an inhabitant of 

 the movmtains, or of the large plains spread out at their base. I have 

 seen a few of them on the wing along the shores of the Hudson, others 

 on the upper parts of the Mississippi, some among the AUeghanies, and 

 a pair in the State of Maine. At Labrador we saw an individual sailing, 

 at the height of a few yards, over the moss-covered surface of the dreary 

 rocks. 



Although possessed of a powerful flight, it has not the speed of many 

 Hawks, nor even of the White-headed Eagle. It cannot, like the latter, 

 pursue and seize on the wing the prey it longs for, but is obliged to glide 

 down through the air for a certain height to insure the success of its en- 

 terprise. The keenness of its eye, however, makes up for this defect, 

 and enables it to spy, at a great distance, the objects on which it preys ; 

 and it seldom misses its aim, as it falls with the swiftness of a meteor to- 

 wards the spot on which they are concealed. When at a great height in 

 the air, its gyrations are uncommonly beautiful, being slow and of wide 

 circuit, and becoming the majesty of the king of birds. It often continues 

 them for hours at a time, with apparently the greatest ease. 



The nest of this noble species is always placed on an inaccessible shelf 

 of some rugged precipice, — never, that I am aware of, on a tree. It is of 

 great size, flat, and consists merely of a few dead sticks and brambles, so 

 bare at times that the eggs might be said to be deposited on the naked 

 rock. They are generally two, sometimes three, having a length of 3| 

 inches, and a diameter at the broadest part of 2^. The shell is thick and 

 smooth, dull white, brushed over, as it were, with undefined patches of 

 brown, which are most numerous at the larger end. The period at which 

 they are deposited, is the end of February or the beginning of March. 

 I have never seen the young when newly hatched, but know that they 

 do not leave the nest until nearly able to provide for themselves, when 

 their parents drive them off" from their home, and finally from their hunt- 



