WASHINGTON SEA-EAGLE. 53 



sparsely covered with bristle-like feathers, disposed in a radiating manner. 

 Wings long, the second and third quills longest, the outer five cut out abruptly 

 on the inner web. Tail rather long, rounded. Duodenum convoluted. 



WASHINGTON SEA-EAGLE. 



Haliaetus Washingtoni, Aud. 



PLATE XIII.— Male. 



It was in the month of February, IS 14, that I obtained the first sight of 

 this noble bird, and never shall I forget the delight which it gave me. Not 

 even Herschel, when he discovered the planet which bears his name, could 

 have experienced more rapturous feelings. We were on a trading voyage, 

 ascending the Upper Mississippi. The keen wintry blasts whistled around 

 us, and the cold from which I suffered had, in a great degree, extinguished 

 the deep interest which, at other seasons, this magnificent river has been 

 wont to awake in me. I lay stretched beside our patroon. The safety of 

 the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that called my attention was the 

 multitude of ducks, of different species, accompanied by vast flocks of swans, 

 which from time to time passed us. My patroon, a Canadian, had been 

 engaged many years in the fur trade. He was a man of much intelligence, 

 and, perceiving that these birds had engaged my curiosity, seemed anxious 

 to find some new object to divert me. An eagle flew over us. "How for- 

 tunate!" he exclaimed; "this is what I could have wished. Look, sir! the 

 Great Eagle, and the only one I have seen since I left the lakes." I was 

 instantly on my feet, and having observed it attentively, concluded, as I lost 

 it in the distance, that it was a species quite new to me. My patroon assured 

 me that such birds were indeed rare; that they sometimes followed the 

 hunters, to feed on the entrails of animals which they had killed, when the 

 lakes were frozen over, but that when the lakes were open, they would dive 

 in the daytime after fish, and snatch them up in the manner of the Fishing 

 Hawk; and that they roosted generally on the shelves of the rocks, where 

 they built their nests, of which he had discovered several by the quantity 

 of white dung scattered below. 



Convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists, I felt particularly 

 anxious to learn its habits, and to discover in what particulars it differed 

 from the rest of its genus. My next meeting with this bird was a few years 

 afterwards, whilst engaged in collecting crayfish on one of those flats which 



