FALCO OSSIFRAGUS. 
34 
circumstance, corroborating these suspicions, is the 
variety that occurs in the colours of the sea eagif’ 
Scarcely two of these are found to he alike, then 
plumage being more or less diluted with white, t" 
some, the chin, breast, and tail-coverts, are of a deep 
brown; in others nearly white; and in all, evident! 
unfixed and varying to a pure white. Their place an 
maimer of building, on high trees, in the neighbourhoo 
of lakes, large rivers, or the ocean, exactly similar w 
the bald eagle, also strengthens the belief. At tb 
celebrated (Cataract of Niagara, great numbers of thes« 
birds, called there gray eagles, are coiitiinially see" 
sailing high and majestically over the watery tumul'' 
in company with the bald eagles, eagerly watching fn^ 
the mangled carcasses of those animals that have bee'' 
hurried over the jirecipice, and ciust up on the rock 
below, by the violence of the Rajiids. These are soi®^ 
of the cirinimstances on which my suspicions of tb^ 
identity of those two birds are founded. In some futur^ 
part of the work, 1 hope to be able to speak with 
certainty on this subject. 
Were wo disposed, after the manner of some, 
substitute, for plain matters of fact, all the narrativ'’®’ 
conjectures, and fanciful theories of travellers, voyag'*'^.’ 
compilers, &c. relative to the history of the eagle, 
volumes of these writers, from Aristotle down to 
admirer, the Count dc Biift'oii, would furnish abundn" 
materials for this purpose. But the author of 
present work feels no ambition to excite surprise 
astonishment at the expense of truth, or to attenip' 
to elevate and embellish his subject beyond the pi^'j 
realities of nature. On this account, he cannot assv"^ 
to the assertion, however eloquently made, in the cc 
brated parallel dran n by the French naturalist, betwy" 
the lion and the eagle, viz. that the eagle, like the l'‘’^| 
“ disdains the possession ot that property which is " 
the fruit of his own industry, and rejects, with conteinp,, 
the prey w'hich is not procured by his own exertion'’ 
since the very reverse of this is the case, in the cood"^^ 
of the bald and the sea eagle, w’ho, during the sum*® 
