WHITE-HEADED, OR BALD EAGLE. 331 
The nest of this species is generally fixed on a very large and 
lofty tree, often in a swamp or morass, and difficult to be ascended. 
On some noted tree of this description, often a pine or cypress, the 
Bald Eagle builds, year after year, for a long series of years. When 
both male and female have been, shot from the nest, another pair has 
soon after taken possession. The nest is large, being added to and 
repaired every season, until it becomes a black, prominent mass, 
observable at a considerable distance. It is formed of large: sticks, 
sods, earthy rubbish, hay, moss, &c. Many have stated to me that the 
female lays first a single egg, and that, after having sat on it for some 
time, she lays another; when the first is hatched, the warmth of that, 
it is pretended, hatches the other. Whether this be correct or not, 1 
cannot determine; but a very respectable gentleman of Virginia 
assured ine, that he saw a large tree cut down, containing the nest of 
a Bald Eagle, in which were two young, one of which appeared nearly 
three times as large as the other. As a proof of their attachment to 
their young, a person near Norfolk informed me, that, in clearing a 
piece of wood on his place, they met with a large dead pine tree, on 
which was a Bald Eagle’s nest and young. The tree being on fire 
more than half way up, and the flames rapidly ascending, the parent 
Eagle darted around and among the flames, until her plumage was so 
much injured that it was with difficulty she could make her escape, 
and even then, she several times attempted ‘to return to relieve her 
offspring. 
No bird provides more abundantly for its young than the Bald 
Eagle. Fish are daily carried thither in numbers, so that they some- 
times lie scattered round the tree, and the putrid sinell of the nest may 
be distinguished at the distance of several hundred yards. The young 
are at first covered with a thick whitish or cream colored cottony 
down; they gradually become of a gray color as their plumage de- 
velopes itself; continue of the brown gray until the third year, when 
the white begins to make its appearance on the head, neck, tail- 
coverts, and tail; these, by the end of the fourth ycar, are completely 
white, or very slightly tinged with cream; the eye also is at first 
hazel, but gradually brightens into a brilliant straw color, with the 
white plumage of the head. Such at least was the gradual progress 
of this change, witnessed by myself, on a very fine specimen brought 
up by a gentleman, a friend of mine, who, for a considerable time, 
believed it to.be what is usually called the Gray Hagle, and was much 
surprised at the gradual metamorphosis. This will account for the 
circumstance, so frequently observed, of the Gray and White-headed 
Kagle, being seen together, both being, in fact, the same species, in 
different stages of color, according to their difference of age. 
The flight of the Bald Eagle, when taken into consideration with 
the ardor and energy of his character, is noble and interesting. Some- 
times the human eye can just discern him, like a minute speck, 
moving in slow curvatures along: the face of the heavens, as if recon- 
noitring the earth at that immense distance. Sometimes he glides 
along in a direct horizontal line, at a vast height, with expanded and 
unmoving wings, till he gradually disappears in the distant blue ether. 
Scen gliding in easy circles over the high shores and mountainous 
cl.ffs that tower above the Hudson and Susquehanna, he attracts the 
