THE CARACARA EAGLE. 23 



in the colours of the bill, legs, eyes, and even the plumage of birds, when 

 looking on imitations which I was aware were taken from stuffed specimens, 

 and which I well knew could not be accurate! The skin, when the bird 

 was quite recent, was of a bright yellow. The bird was extremely lousy. 

 Its stomach contained the remains of a bullfrog, numerous hard-shelled 

 worms, and a quantity of horse and deer-hair. The skin was saved with 

 great difficulty, and its plumage had entirely lost its original lightness of 

 colouring. The deep red of the fleshy parts of the head had assumed a 

 purplish livid hue, and the spoil scarcely resembled the coat of the living 

 Eagle. 



I made a double drawing of this individual, for the purpose of shewing all 

 its feathers, which I hope will be found to be accurately represented. 



Since the period when I obtained the specimen above mentioned, I have 

 seen several others, in which no remarkable differences were observed between 

 the sexes, or in the general colouring. My friend Dr. Benjamin Strobel, 

 of Charleston, South Carolina, who has resided on the west coast of Florida, 

 procured several individuals for the Reverend John Bachman, and informed 

 me that the species undoubtedly breeds in that part of the country, but I 

 have never seen its nest. It has never been seen on any of the Keys along 

 the eastern coast of that peninsula; and I am not aware that it has been 

 observed any where to the eastward of the Capes of Florida. 



The most remarkable difference with respect to habits, between these birds 

 and the American Vultures, is the power which they possess of carrying 

 their prey in their talons. They often walk about, and in the water, in 

 search of food, and now and then will seize on a frog or a very young alli- 

 gator with their claws, and drag it to the shore. Like the Vultures, they 

 frequently spread their wings towards the sun, or in the breeze, and their 

 mode of walking also resembles that of the Turkey-Buzzard. 



Caracara Eagle, Polyborus vulgaris, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 350; vol. v. p. 351. 



Adult Male. 



Bill rather long, very deep, much compressed, cerate for one-half of its 

 length; upper mandible with the dorsal outline nearly straight, but declinate 

 for half its length, curved in the remaining part, the ridge narrow, the sides 

 flat and sloping, the sharp edges slightly undulated, the tip declinate, trigonal; 

 lower mandible with the sides nearly erect, the back rounded, the tip narrow, 

 and obliquely rounded. Nostrils oblong, oblique, in the fore and upper parts 

 of the cere. Head of moderate size, flattened; neck rather short, body rather 

 slender. Feet rather long and slender; tarsus rounded, covered all round 

 with hexagonal scales, the anterior much larger, and the five lower broad 



