EAGLE. 155 



rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his 

 attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in 

 the deep, making the surge 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 the rencontre the most elegant 

 and sublime aerial evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapidly ad- 

 vances, 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 

 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. Sympathy, however, on this as on most 

 other occasions, generally sides with the honest and laborious sufferer, 

 in opposition to the attacks of power, injustice, and rapacity, — qualities 

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

 man, are equally detestable. As for the feelings 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 part 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 man- 

 ners 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. 



" Mr. John L. Gardiner, who resides on an island of three thousand 

 acres, about three miles from the eastern point of Long Island, from 

 which it is separated by Gardiner's Bay, and who has consequently 

 many opportunities of observing the habits of these birds, has favored 

 me with a number of interesting particulars on this subject ; for which 

 I beg leave thus publicly to return my grateful acknowledgment. 



