38 WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



dignified personage, instantly disperse, and make way for their master, 

 waiting his departure in sullen silence, and at a respectful distance, on 

 the adjacent trees. 



In one of those partial migrations of tree squirrels, that sometimes 

 take place in our western forests, many thousands of them were drowned 

 in attempting to cross the Ohio ; and at a certain place, not far from 

 Wheeling, a prodigious number of their dead bodies were floated to the 

 shore by an eddy. Here the Vultures assembled in great force, and had 

 regaled themselves for some time, when a Bald Eagle made his appear- 

 ance, and took sole possession of the premises, keeping the whole Vul- 

 tures at their proper distance, for several days. He has also been seen 

 navigating the same river on a floating carrion, though scarcely raised 

 above the surface of the water, and tugging at the carcass, regardless 

 of snags, sawyers, planters or shallows. He sometimes carries his 

 tyranny to great extremes against the Vultures. In hard times, when 

 food happens to be scarce, should he' accidentally meet with one of these 

 who has its craw crammed with carrion, he attacks it fiercely in air ; the 

 cowardly Vulture instantly disgorges, and the delicious contents are 

 snatched up by the Eagle before they reach the ground. 



The nest of this species is generally fixed on a very large and lofty 

 tree, often in a swamp, or morass, and difilcult to be ascended. On some 

 noted tree of this description, often a pine or cypress, the Bald Eagle 

 builds, year after year, for a long series of years. When both male and 

 female have been shot from the nest, another pair has soon after taken 

 possession. The nest is large, being added to, and repaired, every sea- 

 son, until it becomes a black prominent mass, observable at a consider- 

 able distance. It is formed of large sticks, sods, earthy rubbish, hay^ 

 moss, &c. Many have stated to me that the female lays first a single 

 egg, and that after having sat on it for some time, she lays another ; 

 when the first is hatched, the warmth of that, it is pretended, hatches 

 the other. Whether this be correct or not I cannot determine ; but a 

 verj respectable gentleman of Virginia assured me, that he saw a large 

 tree cut down, containing the nest of a Bald Eagle, in which were two 

 young, one of which appeared nearly three times as large as the other. 

 As a proof of their attachment to their young, a person near Norfolk 

 informed me, that, in clearing a piece of woods on his place, they met 

 with a large dead pine tree, on which was a Bald Eagle's nest and young. 

 The tree being on fire more than half way up, and the flames rapidly 

 ascending, the parent Eagle darted around and among the flames, until 

 ker plumage was so much injured that it was with difiiculty she could 

 make her escape, and even then, she several times attempted to return 

 to relieve her ofi"spring. 



No bird provides more abundantly for its young than the Bald Eagle. 

 Fish are daily carried thither in numbers, so that they sometimes lie 



