LIFE OF AVILSOX. cxxxi 
energy of his character, which is fierce, conteiuphxtive, daring and tyrannical : 
attributes not exerted but on particular occasions ; but, when put forth, over- 
powering all opposition. Elevated upon a high dead limb of some gigantic 
tree, that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems 
calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue 
their busy avocations below : the snow-white Gulls slowly winnowing the air ; 
the busy Tringa; coursing along the sands ; trains of Ducks streaming over the 
surface ; silent and watchful Cranes, intent and wading ; clamorous Crows, and 
all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid maga- 
zine of nature. High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests 
all his attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden suspension in 
air, he knows him to be the Fish-hdwk settling over some devoted victim of 
the deep. His eye kindles at tlie sight, and balancing himself, Avith half- 
opened wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow 
from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings 
reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around. 
At this moment the looks of the Eagle are all ardor; and levelling his neck 
for flight, he sees the Fish-hawk emerge, struggling with his prey, and mount- 
ing into the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, 
who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, soon gains on the Fish- 
hawk, each exerts his utmost to nmnnt above the other, displaying in these 
rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencumbered 
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 hitter 
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 be:irs his ill-gotten liooty silently away to the woods." 
Perhaps there is no similar work extant which can so justly lay claim to the 
merit of originality as Wilson's Ornithology. In books on natural history, in 
genera], wc rarely meet with niucli that is new; and it is not unusual to behold 
labored perfora)ances. which are undistinguished by any flrct, which might 
prove that their authors are entitled to any other praise than that of diligent 
compilers. But in the work before us, we are presented with a fund of in- 
furniation of so uncommon a kind, so various, and so interesting, that we are 
at no loss to perceive that the whole is the result of personal application, 
directed to the only legitimate source of knowledge — Nature, not as she ap- 
pears in the cabinet of the collector, but as she reveals herself in all the grace 
and loveliness of animated existence. 
Independent of those pleasing descriptions, which will always insure the 
work a favorable reception, it has higher claims to our regard, by the philo- 
sophical view which it takes of those birds which mankind had, with one cun- 
sent, proscribed as noxious, but which now we are induced to consider as aux- 
iliaries in agricultvire, whose labors could not be dispensed with without detri- 
ment. A vagrant chicken, now and then, may well be spared to the hawk or 
owl who clears our fields of swarms of destructive mice; the woodpecker, 
whose taste induces him to appropriate to himself the first ripe apple or cherry, 
has well earned the delicacy, by the myriads of pestilential worms of which he 
