WHITE-HEADED, OR BALD EAGLE. 329 
reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the 
woods. 
These predatory attacks, and defensive manceuvres 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 labo- 
rious 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 certainly 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 ani- 
mals, 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. 
In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the manners 
of the Bald Eagle, many accounts have reached me from various 
persons of respectability, living on or near our sea coast; the sub- 
stance of all these I shall endeavor to incorporate with the present 
account. 
Mr. John L. Gardiner, who resides on an island of three thousand 
acres, about three miles from the eastern point of Long Island, from 
which it 1s separated by Gardiner’s Bay, and who has, consequently, 
many opportunities of observing the habits of these birds, has favored 
me with a number of interesting particulars on this subject ; for which 
I beg leave thus publicly to return my grateful acknowledgment. 
“The Bald Eagles,” says this gentleman, “remain on this island 
during the whole winter. They can be most easily discovered on 
evenings, by their loud snoring while asleep on high oak trees; and, 
when awake, their hearing seems to be nearly as good as their sight. 
[ think [ mentioned to you, that I had myself seen one flying with a 
lamb ten days old, and which it dropped on the ground from about 
ten or twelve feet high. The struggling of the lamb, more than its: 
weight, prevented its carrying it away. My running, hallooing, and 
being very near, might prevent its completing its design. It had 
broke the back in the act of seizing it; and I was under the necessity 
of killing it outright to prevent its misery. The lamb’s dam seemed 
astonished to see its innocent offspring borne off into the air by a bird. 
“TJ was lately told,” continues Mr. Gardiner, “by a man of truth, 
that he saw an Eagle rob a Hawk of its fish, and the Hawk seeme? 
so enraged as to fly down at the Eagle, while the Eagle very deliber- 
ately, in the air, threw himself partly over on his hack, and, while he 
grasped with one foot the fish, extended the other to threaten or seize 
the Hawk. I have known several Hawks unite to attack the Eagle ; 
but never knew a single one to do it. The Eagle seems to regard the 
Hawks as the Hawks do the King Birds—only as teasing, trouble- 
some fellows.” 
From the same nent and obliging friend, I lately received a 
98 * 
