WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 
297 
as if it had received a general coating of a tliin dilution of 
gum-arabic, and presenting less of the downy gloss exhibited 
in the upper part of the White-headed Eagle's plumage. 
The male bird weighs fourteen and a half pounds avoirdupois, 
and measures three feet seven inches in length, and ten feet 
two inches in extent." 
This completes Mr. Audubon's account of what he always 
considered his greatest discovery, the Bird of Washington. 
We remarked, that the fact of its being a discovery at all has 
been warmly disputed by the highest American authorities. 
The name is, however, too good a one to be lost ; and if Mr. 
Audubon has made a mistake in figuring the wrong bird, he 
certainly has made none in regard to the fact of a new 
species. It must be a very scarce one of course, as speci- 
mens have been so difficult to obtain. He, himself, in the 
long years of wandering which made up the sum of his 
vigilant and active life, met with only one which it proved 
possible for him to obtain, though he mentions several in- 
stances of its having been seen on the wing. 
The Fish-hawk or Osprey seems to be most naturally re- 
garded as the transition species between the eagles, the 
falcons proper, and the hawks. Partaking, as it does, of 
many of the leading characteristics of these groups, it is yet 
clearly entitled to a separate and distinct classification as the 
Osprey. Indeed the dispute concerning the separate place 
and absolute identification of this bird, has, from the earliest 
period of which we have any accounts of its being noticed, 
given rise to an infinite series of humorous complexities be- 
tween the sense of Cabinet Naturalists, ancient and more 
modern, and the clear demonstrations of the practical Field 
Naturalist of the present day. Alexander Wilson has set 
tliis forth with such admirable tact that we cannot forbear 
quoting him here — though it not the less illustrates the slow 
progress of science towards truth, for me to mention that the 
extract occurs in an article upon the Sea-Eagle, {Falco Ossz- 
fragits^) which he has thus classified, yet with a saving ex- 
