SEA EAGLE. 
61 
Eagles soon after commenced building another nest on the very 
next adjoining tree, thus exhibiting a very particular attachment 
to the spot. The Eagles, he says, make it a kind of home and 
lodging place in all seasons. This man asserts, that the Gray, 
or Sea Eagles, are the young of the Bald Eagle, and that they 
are several years old before they begin to breed. It does not 
drive its young from the nest like the Osprey, or Fish-Hawk; 
but continues to feed them long after they leave it. 
The bird from which the figure in the plate was drawn, and 
which is reduced to one-third the size of life, measured three 
feet in length, and upwards of seven feet in extent. The bill 
was formed exactly like that of the Bald Eagle, but of a dusky 
brown colour; cere and legs bright yellow; the latter, as in the 
Bald Eagle, feathered a little below the knee; irides a bright 
straw colour; head above, neck and back streaked with light 
brown, deep brown and white, the plumage being white, tipt 
and centred with hrown; scapulars brown; lesser wing-coverts 
very pale, intermixed with white; primaries black, their shafts 
brownish white; rump pale brownish white; tail rounded, some- 
what longer than the wings when shut, brown on the exterior 
vanes, the inner ones white, sprinkled with dirty brown; throat, 
breast and belly, white, dashed and streaked with different tints 
of brown and pale yellow; vent brown, tipt with white; femo- 
rals dark brown, tipt with lighter; auriculars brown, forming 
a bar from below the eye backwards; plumage of the neck long, 
narrow and pointed, as is usual with the Eagles, and of a brown- 
ish colour tipt with white. 
The Sea Eagle is said hy various authors to hunt at night as 
well as during the day; and that besides fish it feeds on chick- 
ens, birds, hares and other animals. It is also said to catch fish 
during the night; and that the noise of its plunging into the 
water is heard at a great distance. But in the descriptions of 
these writers this bird has been so frequently confounded with 
the Osprey, as to leave little doubt that the habits and manners 
of the one have been often attributed to both; and others added 
that are common to neither. 
