188 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
branching over tho road. I prepared my double-barrelled 
piece, which I constantly carry, and went slowly and cau- 
tiously towards him. Quite fearlessly he awaited my ap- 
proach, looking upon me with undaunted eye. I fired, and 
he fell. Before I reached him he was dead. With what 
delight did I survey the magnificent bird! Had the finest 
salmon ever pleased him as he did me?—Never. I ran and 
presented him to my friend, with a pride which they alone 
can feel, who, like me, have devoted themselves from their 
earliest childhood to such pursuits, and who have derived 
from them their first pleasures. To others I must seem to 
“ prattle out of fashion.” The Doctor, who was an expe- 
rienced hunter, examined the bird with much satisfaction, 
and frankly acknowledged he had never before seen or heard 
of it. 
The name which I have chosen for this new species of 
Eagle, “The Bird of Washington,” may, by some, be con- 
sidered as preposterous and unfit; but as it is indisputably 
the noblest bird of its genus that has yet been discovered in 
the United States, I trust I shall be allowed to honor it with 
the name of one yet nobler, who was the saviour of his coun- 
try, and whose name will ever be dear to it. To those who 
may be curious to know my reasons, I can only say, that, as 
the New World gave me birth and liberty, the great man 
who insured its independence is next to my heart. He had 
a nobility of mind, and a generosity of soul, such as are 
seldom possessed. He was brave, so is the eagle; like it, 
too, he was the terror of his foes; and his fame, extending 
from pole to pole, resembles the majestic soarings of the 
mightiest of the. feathered tribe. If America has reason to 
be proud of her Washington, so has she to be proud of her 
Great Eagle. 
In the month of January following, I saw a pair of these 
eagles flying over the Falls of the Ohio, one in pursuit of the 
other. The next day I saw them again. The female had 
