98 



WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



The bird from which the foregoing drawing and description 

 were taken, was shot near Great Egg-harbour, in the month of Janu- 

 ary last, was in excellent order, and weighed about eleven pounds. 

 Dr. Samuel B. Smith, of this city, obliged me with a minute and 

 careful dissection of it; from whose copious and very interesting 

 notes on the subject I shall extract such remarks as are suited to 

 the general reader. 



" The Eagle you sent me for dissection was a beautiful female. 

 " It had two expansions of the gullet. The first principally com- 

 " posed of longitudinal bundles of fibre, in which (as the bird is 

 " ravenous and without teeth) large portions of unmasticated meats 

 " are suffered to dissolve before they pass to the lower or proper 

 " stomach, which is membranous. I did not receive the bird time 

 " enough to ascertain whether any chylification was effected by the 

 " juices from the vessels of this enlargement of the oesophagus. I 

 " think it probable that it also has a regurgitating or vomiting 

 " power, as the bird constantly swallows large quantities of indi- 

 " gestible substances, such as quills, hairs, &c. In this sac of the 

 Eagle I found the quill feathers of the small white gull ; and in 

 " the true stomach the tail and some of the breast feathers of the 

 " same bird ; and the dorsal vertebrae of a large fish. This excited 

 " some surprise, until you made me acquainted with the fact of its 

 " watching the Fish Hawks, and robbing them of their prey. Thus 

 " we see, throughout the whole empire of animal life, power is al- 

 " most always in a state of hostility to justice, and of the Deity 

 " only can it truly be said, th^it justice is commensurate with porverf 

 " The Eagle has the several auxiliaries to digestion and assi- 

 " nidation in common with man. The liver was unusually large in 

 " your specimen. It secretes bile, which stimulates the intestines, 

 " prepares the chyle for blood, and by this very secretion of bile, 

 " (as it is a deeply respiring animal) separates or removes some 

 " obnoxious principles from the blood. (See Dr. Rush's admirable 

 " lecture on this important viscus in the human subject.) The in- 



