IS 



SEA EAGLE. 



^famished for tvant of preyj he disdains to feed on carrion^^ since we 

 have ourselves seen the Bald Eagle, while seated on the dead car- 

 case of a horse, keep a whole flock of Vultures at a respectful dis- 

 tance, until he had fully sated his own appetite. The Count has 

 also taken great pains to expose the ridiculous opinion of Pliny, 

 who conceived that the Ospreys formed no separate race, and that 

 they proceeded from the intermixture of different species of Eagles, 

 the young of which were not Ospreys, only Sea Eagles; tvhich Sea 

 Eagles J says he, breed small Vultures j which engender great Vultures 

 that have not the power of propagation.* But, while labouring to 

 confute these absurdities, the Count himself, in his belief of an oc- 

 casional intercourse between the Osprey and the Sea Eagle, con- 

 tradicts all actual observation, and one of the most common and 

 fixed laws of nature ; for it may be safely asserted that there is no 

 habit more universal among the feathered race, in their natural 

 state, than that chastity of attachment, which confines the amours 

 of individuals to those of their own species only. That perversion 

 of nature produced by domestication is nothing to the purpose. In 

 no instance have I ever observed the slightest appearance of a con- 

 trary conduct. Even in those birds which never build a nest for 

 themselves, nor hatch their young, nor even pair, but live in a state 

 of general concubinage; such as the Cuckoo of the old and the 

 Cow Bunting of the new continent; there is no instance of a de- 

 viation from this striking habit. I cannot therefore avoid con- 

 sidering the opinion above alluded to that "the male Osprey by 

 coupling with the female Sea Eagle produces Sea Eagles; and 

 that the female Osprey by pairing with the male Sea Eagle gives 

 birth to Ospreys^t or Fish-Hawks, as altogether unsupported by 

 facts and contradicted by the constant and universal habits of the 

 whole feathered race in their state of nature. 



The Sea Eagle is said by Salerne to build on the loftiest oaks 

 a very broad nest, into which it drops two large eggs, that are 



* Hist. Nat. lib. x, c. 3. f BurroT^, vol. I, p. 80. lYans. 



