288 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
curve and shoulder, his head and neck as white as 
snow, his bill and feet yellow, and a hint of more 
snow white where his tail could be seen below the 
folded wing tips. He, the bald eagle, the largest 
and most powerful creature that now takes the 
air over our eastern lands, since his cousin, the 
golden eagle, has vanished, he, the symbol of 
America, emblem of our might, emblazoned on 
our shield (and our money!), sat like a carved 
image eight hundred feet above the rippling 
brown ribbon of the Deerfield River—watching 
for a dead fish! 
His distant relatives, the duck hawks, two of 
whom had nested not far away, on these same 
precipitous ledges, for many years, live on birds, 
killing them on the wing. The fiery goshawks 
who come down from the north in winter are the 
terrors of the air, killing for the pure love of the 
fight, and attacking any game, even poultry or 
rabbits twice their own weight. The low-flying 
cooper’s hawks (Baldy could see one of them 
now, below him, flowing up over a small orchard 
in a farm tucked down like a piece of green car- 
pet by the side of the river, and diving like a 
