OF NEW ENGLAND. 371 
the snow white Gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy 
Tring coursing along the sands; trains of Ducks streaming 
over the surface; silent and watchful Cranes, intent and wa- 
ding ; clamorous Crows, and all the winged multitudes that 
subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. 
High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests 
all his attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden 
suspension in the air, he knows him to be the Fish-Hawk, 
settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kin- 
dies at the sight, and balancing himself, with half opened 
wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as 
an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his atten- 
tion, the roar of its wings reaching his ear as it disappears in 
the deep, making the surges foam around! At this moment 
the eager looks of the Eagle are all-ardor; and levelling his 
neck for flight, he sees the Fish-Hawk once more emerge, 
struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air with screams 
of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, launch- 
ing into the air, instantly gives chace, soon gains on the Fish- 
Hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, dis- 
playing in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial 
evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapidly advances, and is 
just on the point of reaching his opponent, when with a sudden 
scream probably of despair and honest execration, the latter 
drops his fish; the Eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to 
take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches 
it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten 
booty: silently away to the woods.” ; 
‘* When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 
and perseverance of the Fish-Hawks from their neighbourhood, 
and forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in 
search of young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. 
In the lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the 
inhabitants raise vast herds of those animals, complaints of 
this kind are very general against him. He also destroys 
young lambs in. the early part of spring; and will sometimes 
attack old sickly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes.” 
“The appetite of the Bald Eagle, tho habituated to long 
