FISH HA WK, OR OS PRE V. n$ 



with great rapidity ; but ere he reaches the surface, shoots off 

 on another course, as if ashamed that a second victim had 

 escaped him. He now sails at a short height above the sur- 

 face, and by a zigzag descent, and without seeming to dip his 

 feet in the water, seizes a fish, which, after carrying a short 

 distance, he probably drops, or yields up to the bald eagle, 

 and again ascends, by easy spiral circles, to the higher regions 

 of the air, where he glides about in all the ease and majesty 

 of his species. At once, from this sublime aerial height, he 

 descends like a perpendicular torrent, plunging into the sea 

 with a loud rushing sound, and with the certainty of a rifle. 

 In a few moments he emerges, bearing in his claws his 

 struggling prey, which he always carries head foremost, and, 

 having risen a few feet above the surface, shakes himself as a 

 water spaniel would do, and directs his heavy and laborious 

 course directly for the land. If the wind blow hard, and his 

 nest lie in the quarter from whence it comes, it is amusing to 

 observe with what judgment and exertion he beats to wind- 

 ward, not in a direct line, that is, in the ivind's eye, but 

 making several successive tacks to gain his purpose. This 

 will appear the more striking, when we consider the size of 

 the fish which he sometimes bears along. A shad was taken 

 from a fish hawk near Great Egg Harbour, on which he had 

 begun to regale himself, and had already ate a considerable 

 portion of it ; the remainder weighed six pounds. Another 

 fish hawk was passing Mr Beasley's, at the same place, with 

 a large flounder in his grasp, which struggled and shook him 

 so, that he dropt it on the shore. The flounder was picked 

 up, and served the whole family for dinner. It is singular 

 that the hawk never descends to pick up a fish which he 

 happens to drop, either on the land or on the water. There 

 is a kind of abstemious dignity in this habit of the hawk, 

 superior to the gluttonous voracity displayed by most other 

 birds of prey, particularly by the bald eagle, whose piratical 

 robberies committed on the present species, have been already 

 fully detailed in treating of his history. The hawk, however, in 

 VOL. II. H 



