WASHINGTON SEA-EAGLE. 
53 
sparsely covered with bristle-like feathers, disposed in a radiating manner. 
Wings long, the second and third quills longest, the outer five cut out abruptly 
on the inner web. Tail rather long, rounded. Duodenum convoluted. 
WASHINGTON SEA-EAGLE. 
Haliaetus Washington^ Aud. 
PLATE XIII.— Male. 
It was in the month of February, 1814, that I obtained the first sight of 
this noble bird, and never shall I forget the delight which it gave me. Not 
even Herschel, when he discovered the planet which bears his name, could 
have experienced more rapturous feelings. We were on a trading voyage, 
ascending the Upper Mississippi. The keen wintry blasts whistled around 
us, and the cold from which I suffered had in a great degree extinguished 
the deep interest which, at other seasons, this magnificent river has been 
wont to awake in me. I lay stretched beside our patroon. The safety 
of the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that called my attention was 
the multitude of ducks, of different species, accompanied by vast flocks of 
swans, which from time to time passed us. % My patroon, a Canadian, had 
been engaged many years in the fur trade. He was a man of much intel- 
ligence, and, perceiving that these birds had engaged my curiosity, seeded 
anxious to find some new object to divert me. An Eagle flew over us. 
“ How fortunate !” he exclaimed ; “ this is what I could have wished. 
Look, sir ! the Great Eagle, and the only one I have seen since I left the 
lakes.” I was instantly on my feet, and having observed it attentively, 
concluded, as I lost it in the distance, that it was a species quite new to 
me. My patroon assured me that such birds were indeed rare ; that they 
sometimes followed the hunters, to feed on the entrails of animals which 
they had killed, when the lakes were frozen over, but that when the lakes 
were open, they would dive in the daytime after fish, and snatch them up 
in the manner of the Fishing Hawk ; and that they roosted generally on 
the shelves of the rocks, where they built their nests, of which he had dis- 
covered several by the quantity of white dung scattered below. 
Convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists, I felt particularly 
anxious to learn its habits, and to discover in what particulars it differed 
from the rest of its genus. My next meeting with this bird was a few years 
afterwards, whilst engaged in collecting crayfish on one of those flats which 
