FJiLCO OSSIFRAGUS* 
SEA EAGLE. 
[Plate LV. — Fig. 2.] 
Sea Eagle, Arct. Zool. p. 194, JV’o. 86, ^3. — Peale’s Museum, JV‘o. 
80, Male. 
This eagle inhabits the same countries, frequents the same 
situations, and lives on the same kind of food, as the Bald Eagle, 
with whom it is often seen in company. It resembles this last 
so much in figure, size, form of the bill, legs and claws, and is 
so often seen associating with it, both along the Atlantic coast, 
and in the vicinity of our lakes and large rivers, that I have 
strong suspicions, notwithstanding ancient and very respectable 
authorities to the contrary, of its being the same species, only 
in a different stage of colour. 
That several years elapse before the young of the Bald Eagle 
receive the white head, neck and tail; and that during the in- 
termediate period their plumage strongly resembles that of the 
Sea Eagle, I am satisfied from my own observation on three 
several birds kept by persons of this city. One of these belong- 
ing to the late Mr. Enslen, collector of natural subjects for the 
emperor of Austria, was confidently believed by him to be the 
Black, or Sea Eagle, until the fourth year, when the plumage on 
the head, tail and tail-coverts, began gradually to become white; 
the bill also exchanged its dusky hue for that of yellow; and 
before its death, this bird, which I frequently examined, as- 
sumed the perfect dress of the full-plumaged Bald Eagle. An- 
other circumstance corroborating these suspicions, is the varie- 
ty that occurs in the colours of the Sea Eagle. Scarcely two of 
* This is not a distinct species, but the young of the preceding, the Falco 
lextcocephalus. 
VOL. I. — K k 
