52 
WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 
of which appeared nearly three times as large as the other. As 
a proof of their attachment to their young, a person near Nor- 
folk 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 Ea- 
gle 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 distinguished at the distance of seve- 
ral hundred yards. The young are at first covered with a thick, 
whitish, or cream-coloured cottony down; they gradually be- 
come of a gray colour, as their plumage develops itself, con- 
tinue of the brown gray until the third year, when the white 
begins to make its appearance on the head, neck, tail-coverts 
and tail ; these, by the end of the fourth year, are completely 
white, or very slightly tinged with cream; the eye also is at 
first hazel, but gradually brightens into a brilliant straw colour, 
with the white plumage of the head. Such at least was the 
gradual progress of this change, witnessed by myself, on a very 
fine specimen, brought up by a gentleman, a friend of mine, 
who for a considerable time believed it to be what is usually 
called the Gray Eagle, and was much surprised at the gradual 
metamorphosis. This will account for the circumstance, so fre- 
quently observed, of the Gray and White-headed Eagle being 
seen together, both being in fact the same species, in different 
stages of colour, according to their difference of age. 
The flight of the Bald Eagle, when taken into consideration 
with the ardour and energy of his character, is noble and in- 
teresting. Sometimes 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. 
