472 SEA EAGLE. 
A few miles from this is another Eagle’s nest, built also on a pine- 
tree, which, from the information received from the proprietor of the 
woods, had been long the residence of this family of Eagles, The tree 
on which the nest was originally built, had been, for time immemorial, 
or at least ever since he remembered, inhabited by these Eagles. 
Some of his sons cut down this tree to procure the young, which were 
two in number ; and the Eagles, soon after, commenced building an- 
other nest, on the very next adjoining tree, thus exhibiting a very par- 
ticular attachment to the spot. The Eagles, he says, make it a kind 
of home and lodging place, in all seasons. This man asserts that the 
Gray, or Sea Eagles, are the young of the Bald Eagle, and that they 
are several years old before they begin to breed. It does not drive its 
young from the nest, like the Osprey, or Fish Hawk, but continues to 
feed them long after they leave.it. 
The bird from which Fig. 218 was drawn measured three feet in 
length, and upwards of seven feet in extent. The bill was formed ex- 
actly like that of the Bald Eagle,-but of a dusky brown color ; cere and 
legs, bright yellow; the latter, as in the Bald Hagle, feathered a little 
below the knee; irides, a bright straw color; head above, neck, and 
back, streaked with light brown, deep brown, and white, the plumage 
being white, tipped and centred with brown; scapulars, brown; lesser 
wing-coverts, very pale, intermixed with white; primaries, black, their\ 
shafts brownish white; rump, pale brownish white; tail, rounded, 
somewhat longer than the wings, when shut, brown on the exterior 
vanes, the inner ones white, sprinkled with dirty brown; throat, breast, 
and belly, white, dashed and streaked with different tints of brown 
and pale yellow; vent, brown, tipped with white; femorals, dark 
brown, tipped with lighter; auriculars, brown, forming a bar from be- 
low the eye backwards; plumage of the neck, long, narrow, and 
i, as is usual with Eagles, and of a brownish color, tipped with 
white. i 
The Sea Eagle is said, by various authors, to hunt at night, as well 
as during the day, and that, besides fish, it feeds on chickens, birds, 
hares, and other animals. It is also said to catch fish during the 
night ; and that the noise of its plunging intc the water is heard at a 
great distance. But, in the descriptions of these writers, this bird has 
been so frequently confounded with the Osprey, as to leave little doubt 
that the habits and manners of the one have been often attributed to 
both, and others added that are common to neither. 
