WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 
299 
an occasional intercourse between tlie Osprey and the Sea- 
Eagle, contradicts 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 at- 
tachment 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 ob- 
served the slightest appearance of a contrary 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 gen- 
eral concubinage — such as the cuckoo of the old, and the 
caw-bunting of the new continent — there is no instance of a 
deviation from this striking habit. I cannot, therefore, avoid 
considering 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 of Ospreys,' or Fish-Hawks, as alto- 
gether unsupported by facts, and contradicted by the con- 
stant and universal habits of the whole feathered race, in 
their state of nature." 
Wilson seems to have made the same mistake in regard to 
Falco Ossifragus, his sea-eagle, that Audubon has undoubtedly 
fallen into in relation to Falco Wasliingtonii and the same 
bird. Since, as I remarked in my last j^aper, the specimen 
figured by him as a specimen of the new bird, is so nearly 
like to Falco Alhicilla, as to leave a doubt whether he has not 
figured a fine accidental example of the latter for a new and 
unnamed bird which undoubtedly does exist, but the swallow - 
like wings of which, not to speak of their immense exten- 
sion and the peculiar beak and head, renders it as yet a coiii- 
paratively unknown and certainly an unfigured species. 
But however it may be in regard to these curious discuss- 
ions, growing out of the different experiences and sources of 
information at the command of individual authors belonging 
