gg white-headed, or bald eagle. 



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 unencumbered 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. 



These predatory attacks, and defensive manoeuvres of the 

 eagle and the fish hawk, are matters of daily observation along 

 the whole of our sea board, from Georgia to New England, 

 and frequently excite great interest in the spectators. Sym- 

 pathy, however, on this, as on most other occasions, gene- 

 rally sides with the honest and laborious sufferer, in opposi- 

 tion to the attacks of power, injustice, and rapacity — qualities 

 for which our hero is so generally notorious, and which, in 

 his superior, man, are certainly detestable. As for the feel- 

 ings of the poor fish, they seem altogether out of the question. 



When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 

 and perseverance of the fish hawks, from their neighbourhood, 

 and forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in 

 search of young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. 

 In the lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the 

 inhabitants raise vast herds of those animals, complaints of 

 this kind are very general against him. He also destroys 

 young lambs in the early part of spring ; and will sometimes 

 attack old sickly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes. 



In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the 

 manners of the bald eagle, many accounts have reached me 

 from various persons of respectability, living on or near our 

 sea-coast : the substance of all these I shall endeavour to 

 incorporate with the present account. 



