70 
HALIAETUS LEUCOGASTEE. 
and confines itself to one particular spot — a sequestered hill-side, containing its one or two huge banyan trees 
towering above the surrounding jungle, or the forest-covered bank of some inland sheet of water; here it 
breeds and passes all its life, sending forth its young to other haunts, which are usually not far from the place 
of their birth. Sallying out in the early morning, it quietly sails along high above the resounding shore, its 
w'ings outstretched and motionless, and its snowy head turning from side to side, as it scans each passing reef 
for its favourite morsel, the sea-snake ; or it sweeps out to sea, with its eye intent on the inhabitants of the 
blue waters beneath ; and keen indeed is its sight. Should any luckless fish venture to the surface beneath 
those silent wings, his time has come ; with half-closed pinions and extended talons the Fish-Eagle descends 
with a booming rush ; a splash, and up he rises with heavy flappings, bearing away his well-caught prey to 
some favourite rock or tree, beneath which the bones of many a fish and snake testify to the Eaglets feasts. 
It is partial to the sea-snake ( Hydrophis ), which, basking on the uncovered reef, is an easy prey ; it likewise 
captures crabs, or feeds, if hungry, on any thing dead which it finds on the shore ; but its favourite food is fish, 
for which it will pursue even the Osprey and rob it, as J erdon remarks, of its well-earned food. During the 
heat of the day this Eagle often soars to a great height, and as it rises in wide circles, its pinions upturned to 
the extreme, its flight is grand and majestic*. Its loud cry of clank, clank, clank, which is repeatedly uttered 
in the breeding-season, can be heard at a considerable distance, and often leads to the discovery of its eyrie. 
It lives admirably in confinement, thriving even when wounded and captured as an adult, and feeds glutton- 
ously on either cooked or raw meat. Mr. Iloldsworth mentions one bird in his notes which was reared on 
the universal rice and curry of the native ; and I have no doubt he was rightly informed, for little came amiss 
to my tame one. He was a cowardly bird in his disposition, standing in wholesome fear of a fierce little 
Crested Eagle in the same aviary with him, and also allowing himself to be bullied out of many a morsel by a 
(rannet which at another time kept company with him. A notice of this fine Eagle would be incomplete 
without quoting from Layard’s graphic description of its habits. He says, “The flight of this species is noble 
and imposing ; poised high over the resounding surge, it wheels above on circling pinions, and with extended 
neck surveys the finny tribes. Here shoals of beak-nosed fishes swim in their seasonal migrations along the 
coral reef ; there brilliant Chsetodons float in the shallows. The tide has partially receded, and the water lies in 
still crystal pools in the depressions of the reef : over one of these the Fish-Eagle passes ; an abrupt wheel 
shows his attention arrested ; a moment’s pause, and down he plunges, his body swaying to and fro. The 
surface is reached, the legs suddenly thrown out, and with exulting cries he soars aloft, bearing in his talons a 
writhing snake, eel, or large fish. The efforts of the bird to secure its prey in a proper position are now 
curious. If a fish is captured the feat is comparatively easy ; the talons of the Hawk are gradually shifted 
until one grasps the prey near the gills and the other near the tail With a snake or eel the matter 
is more difficult, and I have often seen the prey free itself from its captor by its strong writhings ; a bite, 
however, neai the head destroys its power, and it is borne away dangling by the neck in the grasp of its 
desti oyer. I observed that my tame birds invariably commenced eating a fish by tearing it at the back of 
the neck, the head being pointed to the bird’s left ; small fish, however, up to 5 or 6 inches, they would bolt 
entire, jerking them down head foremost. 
Mr. Hume, in his interesting account of his trip to the Laccadives, contained in f Stray Feathers/ 1874, 
has the following observations on the habits of this Eagle at Pigeon Island. At page 423 he writes, “ One 
that I shot as he swept overhead, high above the stunted trees that concealed me, had in his claws the entire 
liver and stomach of a goat It is a fine sight to see these Eagles striking one after the other in rapid 
succession. Soaring far above the island, often, I should judge, from a height of at least 1000 feet they come 
down with nearly closed wings, and with a rushing roar, like that of a cannon-ball, in a perfectly direct line, 
making an angle of about 00° with the water, which they scarcely seem to reach before they are again mounting 
with heavy flaps, and with a yard or two of snake hanging dead in their talons. One snake I recovered, shooting 
its captor, less than a minute after it had been seized. It was stone dead (though we all know how tenacious 
(unild, in his grand work on the ‘ Birds of Australia,’ remarks that the great breadth and roundness of its pinions 
and the shortness of its neck and tail give this Eagle, when floating in circles high in the air, the resemblance of a. large 
butterfly. 
