WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



91 



surges foam around! At this moment the eager looks of the Eagle 

 are all ardor; 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 chace, soon gains 

 on the Fish-Hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount above the 

 other, displaying in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime 

 aerial evolutions. The unincumbered 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 silent- 

 ly away to the woods. 



These predatory attacks and defensive manoeuvres of the 

 Eagle and the 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, how- 

 ever, 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 certainly 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 

 parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the inhabitants raise 

 vast herds of those animals, complaints of this kind are very ge- 

 neral against him. He also destroys young lambs in the early part 

 of spring; and will sometimes attack old sickly sheep, aiming fu- 

 riously at their eyes. 



