38 
WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 
dignified personage, instantly disperse, and make way for their master, 
waiting his departure in sullen silence, and at a respectful distance, on 
the adjacent trees. 
In one of those partial migrations of tree squirrels, that sometimes 
take place in our western forests, many thousands of them were drowned 
in attempting to cross the Ohio ; and at a certain place, not far from 
Wheeling, a prodigious number of their dead bodies were floated to the 
shore by an eddy. Here the Vultures asseml)led in great force, and had 
regaled themselves for some time, wlien a Bald Eagle made his appear- 
ance, and took sole possession of the premises, keeping the whole Vul- 
tures at their proper distance, for several days. He has also been seen 
navigating tlie same river on a floating carrion, though scarcely raised 
above the surface of the water, and tugging at the carcass, regardless 
of snags, sawyers, planters or shallows. He sometimes carries his 
tyranny to great extremes against the Vultures. In hard times, when 
food happens to be scarce, should he accidentally meet with one of these 
who has its craw crammed with carrion, he attacks it fiercely in air ; the 
cowardly Vulture instantly disgorges, and the delicious contents are 
snatched up by the Eagle before they reach the ground. 
The nest of this species is generally fixed on a very large and lofty 
tree, often in a swamp, or morass, and difl[icult to be ascended. On some 
noted tree of this description, often a pine or cypress, the Bald Eagle 
builds, year after year, for a long series of years. When both male and 
female have been shot from the nest, another pair has soon after taken 
possession. The nest is large, being added to, and repaired, every sea- 
son, until it becomes a black prominent mass, observable at a consider- 
able distance. It is formed of large sticks, sods, earthy rubbish, hay, 
moss, &c. Many have stated to me that the female lays first a single 
egg, and that after having sat on it for some time, she lays another ; 
when the first is hatched, the warmth of that, it is pretended, hatches 
the other. Whether this be correct or not I cannot determine ; but a 
very respectable gentleman of Virginia assured me, that he saw a large 
tree cut down, containing the nest of a Bald Eagle, in which were two 
young, one of which appeared nearly three times as large as the other. 
As -a proof of their attachment to their young, a person near Norfolk 
informed me, that, in clearing a piece of woods on his place, they met 
with a large dead pine tree, on which was a Bald Eagle's nest and young. 
The tree being on fire more than half way up, and the flames rapidly 
ascending, the parent Eagle darted around and among tlie flames, until 
her plumage was so much injured that it was with difiiculty she could 
make her escape, and even then, she several times attempted to return 
to relieve her o0"spring. 
No bird provides more abundantly for its young than the Bald Eagle. 
Fish are daily carried thither in numbers, so that they sometimes lie 
