SEA EAGLE 



17 



more or less diluted with white. In some the chin, breast and 

 tail-coverts are of a deep brown; in others nearly white; and in 

 all evidently unfixed and varying to a pure white. Their place 

 and manner of building, on high trees, in the neighbourhood of 

 lakes, large rivers, or the ocean, exactly similar to the Bald Eagle, 

 also strengthens the belief. At the celebrated cataract of Niagara 

 great numbers of these birds, called there Grey Eagles, are con- 

 tinually seen sailing high and majestically over the watery tumult, 

 in company with the Bald Eagles, eagerly watching for the man- 

 gled carcases of those animals that have been hurried over the 

 precipice, and cast up on the rocks below, by the violence of the 

 rapids. These are some of the circumstances on which my sus- 

 picions of the identity of those two birds are founded. In some 

 future part of the work I hope to be able to speak with more cer- 

 tainty on this subject. 



Were we disposed, after the manner of some, to substitute for 

 plain matters of fact all the narratives, conjectures, and fanciful 

 theories of travellers, voyagers, compilers, &c. relative to the his- 

 tory of the Eagle, the volumes of these writers, from Aristotle 

 down to his admirer the Count de BufFon, would furnish abundant 

 materials for this purpose. But the author of the present work 

 feels no ambition to excite surprise and astonishment at the ex- 

 pense of truth, or to attempt to elevate and embellish his subject 

 beyond the plain realities of nature. On this account, he cannot 

 assent to the assertion, however eloquently made, in the celebrated 

 parallel drawn by the French naturalist between the Lion and the 

 Eagle, viz, that the Eagle, like the Lion, " disdains the possession 

 of that property which is not the fruit of his own industry, and re- 

 jects with contempt the prey which is not procured by his own ex- 

 ertions since the very reverse of this is the case in the conduct of 

 the Bald and the Sea Eagle, who, during the summer months, are 

 the constant robbers and plunderers of the Osprey or Fish-Hawk^ 

 by whose industry alone both are usually fed. Nor that " though 



VOL. VII. E 



