SEA EAGLE. 
59 
Bald Eagle, while seated on the dead carcass of a horse, keep a 
whole flock of Vultures at a respectful distance, until he had 
fully sated his own appetite. The Count has also taken great 
pains to expose the ridiculous opinion of Pliny, who conceived 
that the Ospreys formed no separate race, and that they pro- 
ceeded from the intermixture of different species of Eagles, the 
young of which were not Ospreys, only Sea Eagles; which Sea 
Eagles, says he, breed small Vultures, which engender great 
Vultures that have not the power of propagation* But, while 
labouring to confute these absurdities, the Count himself, in his 
belief of an occasional intercourse between the Osprey and the 
Sea Eagle, contradicts all actual observation, and one of the most 
common and fixed laws of nature; for it maybe safely asserted, 
that there is no habit more universal among the feathered race, 
in their natural state, than that chastity of attachment, which 
confines the amours of individuals to those of their own species 
only. That perversion of nature produced by domestication is 
nothing to the purpose. In no instance have I ever observed the 
slightest appearance of a contrary conduct. Even in those birds 
which never build a nest for themselves, nor hatch their young, 
nor even pair, but live in a state of general concubinage: such 
as the Cuckoo of the old, and the Cow Bunting of the new con- 
tinent; there is no instance of a deviation from this striking 
habit. I cannot therefore avoid considering the opinion above 
alluded to, that ‘‘ the male Osprey by coupling with the female 
Sea Eagle produces Sea Eagles; and that the female Osprey by 
pairing with the male Sea Eagle gives birth to Osprey s”t or Fish- 
Hawks, as altogether unsupported by facts, and contradicted by 
the constant and universal habits of the whole feathered race in 
their state of nature. 
The Sea Eagle is said by Salerne to build on the loftiest oaks 
a very broad nest, into which it drops two large eggs, that are 
quite round, exceedingly heavy, and of a dirty white colour. 
Of the precise time of building we have no account, but some- 
* Hist. Nat. Ub. x, c. 3. t Buffon, vol. I, p. 80, Trans. 
