94 THE WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast magazine of Nature. High 

 over all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests 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 kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself with half-opened wings on the 

 branches, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object 

 of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges 

 foam around. At this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardour, and levelling his neck for 

 flio-ht, 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, launching into the air, instantly gives 

 chase, and soon gains on the fish-hawk. Each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying 

 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." 



Sometimes, however, the fish-hawks assemble in bands too numerous for him to encounter, and he 

 is driven to hunt for himself. He then usually retires inland, and occasionally destroys great numbers 

 of young pigs and lambs. At other times he contents himself with fowl ; and ducks, geese, and gulls 

 fall victims to his insatiable appetite. His nest is commonly built on the top of large trees, generally 

 a pine or a cypress, and growing in the midst of a morass. It is formed of sticks, sods, hay, moss, and 

 other similar materials ; and being repaired and added to year after year, at length becomes a large black 

 prominent mass, observable at a considerable distance. The number of eggs laid by the female is 

 generally two, and the young birds are nurtured by their parents with the greatest care. Fishes are 

 sometimes carried to the nest in such numbers that their putrid remains lay scattered about the place, 

 and scent the air to the distance of several hundred yards. The old birds continue to feed their off- 

 spring for a considerable time after the latter has become capable of quitting the nest. 



The full grown bird measures upwards of three feet in length from beak to tail, and more than 

 seven in the expanse of its wings. The young are at first covered with a thick whitish or cream- 

 coloured cottony down ; they presently become of a gray colour as their plumage developes itself, 

 and continue of a brown gray until the third year, when the white begins to make its appearance 

 upon the head, neck, tail-coverts, and tail. These by the end of the fourth year are completely white, 

 or at the most very slightly tinged with cream colour. The eye is at first hazel, but gradually brightens 

 into a brilliant straw-colour ; as the plumage of the head becomes white, the quill-feathers and 

 primary wing-coverts are black, with their shaft of a pale brown ; the secondary are considerably 

 lighter, and the tail, which projects in a trifling degree beyond the extremities of the wing, is brown on 

 the outer quills and of a mixed white and brown on the inner : the under surface, as far backwards as 

 the middle of the belly, is of a much lighter shade than the upper, being of a dull white with 

 numerous broad streaks of pale brown. The beak is of a dusky brown, the cere and legs of a golden- 

 yellow ; the iris somewhat lighter, and the talons a deep blackish-brown. The bird is usually spoken 

 of as inhabiting the northern parts both of the old and new continent, but it appears to be only a rare 

 and occasional visitant of the former. 



