BALD EAGLE. 81 
in Europe. One male, as reported by Degland, has 
been killed in Switzerland—a female in the kingdom 
of Wurtemberg; and it is stated by Brehm to appear 
sometimes on the sea-coasts of Germany. It is not easy 
to account for Schlegel’s reasons therefore for omitting 
this bird from the European list. He seems, I think 
without sufficient reason, to have thrown doubt upon 
the truth of the various reports of its capture, and 
considers it to have been confounded with other 
species. On this point Degland remarks, “The opinion 
which M. Schlegel gives on this subject, in his twentieth 
observation, would appear to me of great weight in the 
argument for erasing this bird from the European list, 
if M. Nordmann had not mentioned in the “Faune Pon- 
tique,” the capture in the middle of Russia of two Sea 
Eagles, with all the head, neck, and tail of a pure snow 
white. After having compared them carefully with other 
Sea Eagles killed in the same locality, he considered 
them to be old individuals of F. albicilla, not admitting 
any specific difference between it and F’ leucocephalus. 
It is probable if the learned naturalist of Leyden had 
known this fact, he would have been very careful not 
to erase F’. leucocephalus from the European list; for I 
do not know that F. albicilla ever has, when it becomes 
old, the head and neck of a pure white, like the tail.” 
The habits of F. leucocephalus are very similar to those 
of the White-tailed Eagle. An admirable description is 
given of this bird by Audubon, and his graphic account 
of its encounter with a Swan on the banks of the 
Mississippi, has been copied into almost every work 
upon ornithology. I shall not insert it here, but I can- 
not help quoting the observations of a recent French 
writer, M. Mouat, after relating this spirited narrative 
in his work:— ’ 
VOL. I. M 
