54 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow 

 from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention ; the roar 

 of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making 

 the surges foam around. At this moment, the eager looks of the 

 Eagle are all ardor; and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees 

 the Fish-hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and 

 mounting in the air with screams of exultation. These are the 

 signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives 

 chase, and soon gains on the Fish-hawk : each exerts his utmost to 

 mount above the other, displaying in these rencontres the most 

 elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencumbered Eagle 

 rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, 

 when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest 

 execration, the latter drops his fish : the Eagle, poising himself for 

 a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirl- 

 wind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears 

 his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods. 



" These predatory attacks and defensive manoeuvres of the 

 Eagle and the Fish-hawk are matters of daily observation along 

 the whole of our seaboard, from Georgia to New England, and 

 frequently excite great interest in the spectators. Sympathy, 

 however, on this as on most other occasions, generally sides with 

 the honest and laborious sufferer, in opposition to the attacks 

 of power, injustice, and rapacity ; qualities for which our hero is 

 so generally notorious, and which, in his superior, man, are cer- 

 tainly detestable. As for the feelings of the poor fish, they seem 

 altogether out of the question. 



" When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 

 and perseverance of the fish-hawks, from their neighborhood, and 

 forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in search of 

 young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. In the lower 

 parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the inhabitants raise 

 vast herds of those animals, complaints of this kind are very 

 general against him. He also destroys young lambs in the early 

 part of spring ; and will sometimes attack old sickly sheep, aiming 

 furiously at their eyes." 



It generally chooses for a breeding-place a retired spot 

 in the neighborhood of a tract of water. The nest ia 



