48 
WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 
reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges 
foam around ! At this moment the eager looks of the Eagle are 
all ardour; and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the Fish- 
Hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mount- 
ing in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal 
for our hero, who, lanching into the air, instantly gives chace, 
soon gains on the Fish-Hawk, each exerts his utmost to mount 
above the other, displaying in these rencounters the most elegant 
and sublime aerial evolutions. The unincumbered 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 latter 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 
bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods. 
These predatory attacks, and defensive manoeuvres, of the 
Eagle and the Fish-Hawk, are matters of daily observation along 
the whole of our seacoast, from Florida to New England; and 
frequently excite great interest in the spectators. Sympathy, 
however, on this, as on most other occasions, generally sides 
with the honest and laborious sufferer, in opposition to the at- 
tacks of power, injustice and rapacity ; qualities for which our 
hero is so generally notorious, and which, in his superior man., 
are certainly detestable. As for the feelings of the poor fish, 
they seem altogether out of the question. 
When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 
and perseverance of the Fish-Hawks from their neighbourhood, 
and forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in search 
of young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. In the 
lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where the inhab- 
itants raise vast herds of those animals, complaints of this kind 
are very general against him. He also destroys young lambs 
in the early part of spring; and will sometimes attack old sick- 
ly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes. 
In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the 
manners of the Bald Eagle, many accounts have reached me 
