WHAT IS THE ‘‘ WASHINGTON EAGLE"? . 527 
in his “Synopsis of North American Birds,” * and in his re- 
port on the rapacious birds in Professor Baird's great work 
on the “Birds of North America.” If not a valid species, of 
which there seems to be but slight evidence, it must be 
either an immature Whité-hénded Eagle or an immature 
Northern Sea Eagle ( Haliaétus albicillay, since these are its 
only known near allies, though neither of these are known to 
ever quite equal it in size. The White-headed Eagle ranges 
in alar extent from a little less than seven feet to a little 
more than eight; and the Northern Sea Eagle is of about the 
same size. That it is not the latter is evident from the fact 
that Audubon describes his bird as breeding in Kentucky, 
a locality far south of the known range of ‘ie truly arctic 
Sea Eagle. It would be one of the strangest facts in 
natural history that a bird like Audubon’s Washington Eagle 
should remain undiscovered for more than fifty years, when 
its alleged habitat is within the settled parts of the United 
States. On the whole it seems to me tolerably evident that 
this supposed species should be considered as based on a 
large example of H. leucocephalus, and that a “few grains of 
bikinia may be safely made for slight inaccuracies on the 
part of its enthusiastic discoverer. "The bird referred to 
above by Mr. Jarvis I regard as unquestionably referable to 
the H. leucocephalus.t 
t Farther remarks concerning the “Washington Eagle” may be found in the writer’s 
“Catalogue of the used Trae of vic rion ètc., in the * tech of the Museum of 
Comparative Zoology,” Lis as well as conce a Bartram’s hi 
“Sacred Vulture,” “satires a ne combination igi ain characters of = 
Caracara Eagle e (Polyborus maeh Cassin), the White headed } Cok: Haliaétus leuco 
Lesen and the John Crow (Sarcorhamphus papa) of the West Indies. Reasons oe 
H. albicilla. 
