470 SEA EAGLE. 
Their place and manner of building, on high trees, m the neighbor- 
hood of lakes, large rivers, or the ocean, exactly similar to the Bald 
Eagle, also strengthens the belief. At the celebrated Cataract of 
Niagara, great numbers of these birds, called there Gray Eagles, are 
continually seen sailing high and majestically over the watery tumult, 
in company with the Bald Eagles, eagerly watching for the mangled 
carcasses of those animals that have been hurried over the precipice, 
and cast up on the rocks below, by the violence of the rapids. These 
are some of the circumstances on which my suspicions of the identity 
of those two birds are founded. In some future part of the work, I 
hope to be able to speak with more certainty on this subject. 
Were we disposed, after the manner of some, to substitute, for plain 
matters of fact, all the narratives, conjectures, and fanciful theories of 
travellers, voyagers, compilers, &c., relative to the history of the Eagle, 
the volumes of these writers, from Aristotle down to his admirer, the 
Count de Buffon, would furnish abundant materials for this purpose. 
But the author of the present work feels no ambition to excite surprise 
and astonishment at the expense of truth, or to attempt to elevate and 
embellish his subject beyond the plain realities of nature. On this ac- 
count, he cannot assent to the assertion, however eloquently made, in 
the celebrated parallel drawn by the French naturalist, between the 
Lion and the Eagle, viz. that the Eagle, like the Lion, “ disdains the 
possession of that property which is not the fruit of his own industry, 
and rejects with contempt the prey which is not procured by his own 
exertions ;” since the very reverse of this is the case, in the conduct 
of the Bald and the Sea Eagle, who, during the summer months, are 
the constant robbers and plunderers of the Osprey, or Fish Hawk, by 
whose industry alone both are usually fed. Nor that, “though fam- 
ished for want of prey, he disdains to feed on carrion,” since we have 
ourselves seen the Bald Eagle, while seated on the dead carcass of a 
horse, keep a whole flock of Vultures at a respectful distance, until he 
had fully sated his own appetite. The Count has also taken great 
pains to expose the ridiculous opinion of Pliny, who conceived that 
the Ospreys formed no separate race, and that they proceeded from the 
intermixture of different species of Eagles, the young of which were 
not Ospreys, only Sea Eagles; “which Sea Eagles,” says he, “breed 
small Vultures, which engender great Vultures, that have not the power 
of propagation.” * But, while laboring to confute these absurdities, 
the Count himself, in his belief’ of an occasional intercourse between 
the Osprey and the Sea Eagle, contradicts all actual observation, and 
one of the most common and fixed laws of nature; for it may be safely 
asserted, that there is no habit more universal among the feathered 
race, in their natural state, than that chastity of attachment, which 
confines the amours of individuals to those of their own species only. 
That perversion of nature, produced by domestication, is nothing to 
the purpose. In no instance have I ever observed the slightest ap- 
pearance of a contrary conduct. Even in those birds which never 
build a nest for themselves, nor hatch their young, nor even pair, but 
live in a state of general concubinage, — such as the Cuckoo of’ the 
old, and the Cow Bunting of the new continent, — there is no instance 
* Hist. Not. lib. a. ¢. 3 
