82 BALD EAGLE. 



"Let us compare with this magnificent description the 

 most elegant pages of Buffon, and the difference will be 

 seen between the sedentary and the field naturalist. We 

 are far from being so ungrateful or so bold as to wish 

 to weaken the admiration due to that immortal writer, 

 who must be ever remembered with pride by France 

 among its scientific and literary glories. In inviting our 

 readers to study comparatively the style of two such 

 eminent men, we only wish to make them feel how many 

 advantages a simple and exact mind, which has studied 

 from Nature, has over the most brilliant genius which 

 has only made its observations in a menagerie or a 

 garden. The passionate love of Natural History is the 

 only secret of the descriptive talent of Audubon, and 

 the attentive observation of facts has sufficed to give to 

 the pictures he has drawn a warmth of colouring which 

 the most clever writer cannot find among the dust of 

 his cabinet." 



I shall, I am sure, be excused this digression, con- 

 taining, as it does, so just a tribute to the celebrated 

 American ornithologist. 



M. Mouat gives the following description of Audubon's 

 first discovery of what he then thought a new species, 

 but which, according to Prince C. Bonaparte, is the 

 one I am now describing. I transcribe M. Mouat's 

 account of this discovery: — 



"Audubon describes under the name of Washington's 

 Eagle a species of Fishing Eagle, which Prince C. 

 Bonaparte re-unites to the Falco leucocephalus. The 

 American ornithologist observed it for the first time in 

 1814, and felt, he said, happier in finding this new 

 species than Herschel did in discovering his planet. It 

 was in the month of February Audubon was ascending 

 the Mississippi. The glacial north wind surrounded him, 



