FALCONIDiE. 17 



" High over all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests all 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 

 branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends 

 the object of his attention ; the roar of its wings, reaching the ear as it dis- 

 appears 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 flight, 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 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." 



This vivid and highly poetical passage may be contrasted with the prosaic, 

 though didactic notice of the same bird, by a great political sage. 



" For my own part," says Franklin, " I wish the Bald Eagle had not been 

 chosen as the representative of our country ; he is a bird of a bad moral character ; 

 he does not get his living honestly : you may have seen him perched on some dead 

 tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the Fishing- 

 hawk ; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to 

 his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, 

 and takes it from him. With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but, 

 like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, 

 and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward ; the little King-bird, not 

 bigger than a Sparrow, attacks him boldly, and drives him out of the district. 

 He is, therefore, by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati 

 of America, who have driven all the King-birds from our country ; though exactly 

 fit for that order of knights whom the French call Chevaliers ^Industrie. I am, 

 on this account, not displeased that the figure is not known as the Bald Eagle, 

 but looks more like a Turkey." 



The White-headed Eagle builds a rude nest of sticks, coarsely lined with hay, 

 on the ledge of some inaccessible rock, generally overhanging a rapid, or on the 



D 



