158 
EAGLE. 
me, that he saw a larg’e 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 the flames, until her plumage was so much injured, 
that it was with difficulty she could make her escape, and even then 
she several times attempted to return to relieve her offspring. 
“ No bird provides more abundantly for its young than the Bald Eagle. 
Fish are daily carried thither in numbers, so that they sometimes lie 
scattered round the tree, and the putrid smell of the nest may be dis- 
tinguished at the distance of several hundred yards. 
The flight of the Bald Eagle, when taken into consideration with 
the ardour and energy of his character, is noble and interesting. Some- 
times the human eye can just discern him, like a minute speck, moving 
in slow curvatures along the face of the heavens, as if reconnoitring 
the earth at that immense distance. Sometimes he glides along in a 
direct horizontal line, at a vast height, with expanded and unmoving 
wings, till he gradually disappears in the distant blue ether. Seen 
gliding in easy circles over the high shores and mountainous cliffs that 
tower above the Hudson and Susquehanna, he attracts the eye of the 
intelligent voyager, and adds great interest to the scenery. At the 
great cataract of Niagara, already mentioned, there rises from the gulf 
into which the fall of the horse-shoe descends, a stupendous column 
of smoke or spray, reaching to the heavens, and moving off in large 
black clouds, according to the direction of the wind, forming a very 
striking and majestic appearance. The Eagles are here seen sailing 
about, sometimes losing themselves in this thick column, and again re- 
appearing in another place, with such ease and elegance of motion, as 
renders the whole truly sublime : 
“ High o’er the watery uproar silent seen. 
Sailing sedate in majesty serene, 
Now midst the pillar’d spray sublimely lost, 
And now, emerging, down the rapids tost. 
Glides the Bald Eagle, gazing, calm and slow. 
O’er all the horrors of the scene below ; 
Intent alone to sate himself with blood, 
From the torn victims of the raging flood. 
‘^The Eagle is said to live to a great age — sixty, eighty, and, as some 
assert, one hundred years. This circumstance is remarkable, when we 
