WHITE-HEADED, OR BALD EAGLE, 
93 
Vulture, tlie Raven, and the Bald Eagle, the subject of the 
present account. This bird has been long known to naturalists, 
being common to both continents, and occasionally met with 
from a very high northern latitude, to the borders of the torrid 
zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea, and along the 
shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers. Formed by 
nature for braving the severest cold ; feeding equally on the 
produce of the sea and of the land; possessing powers of 
flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves ; 
unawed by any thing but man ; and, from the ethereal heights 
to which he soars, looking abroad, at one glance, on an 
or Social Swallow, liis tail spread, and his wings partly so. I trembled lest a 
word should escape my companions. The slightest murmur had been treason 
from them. They entered into my feelings, and, though little interested, 
joined with me. In a few minutes the other parent joined her mate. She 
glanced her quick and piercing eye around, and instantly perceived that her 
abode had been discovered. She dropped her prey, with a loud shriek, 
communicated the alarm to the male, and, hovering with him over our heads, 
kept up a growling cry.” It was not till two years after that Mr Audubon 
had the good fortune to shoot this Eagle ; and the following description was 
then taken : — 
“ Bill, bluish black, the edges pale ; the soft margin towards the commissure, 
and the base of the under mandible, yellow ; cere, yellowish brown ; lore, 
light greenish blue ; iris, chestnut brown ; feet, deep yellow ; claws, bluish 
black ; upper part of the head, hind neck, back scapulars, rump, tail-coverts, 
and posterior tibial feathers, blackish brown, glossed with a coppery tint ; 
throat, fore neck, breast, and belly, light brownish yellow, each feather marked 
along the centre with blackish brown ; wing-coverts, light grayish brown, 
those next the body becoming darker, and approaching the colour of the back ; 
primary quills, dark brown, deeper on their inner webs ; secondaries, lighter, 
and on their outer webs, of nearly the same light tint as their coverts ; tail, 
uniform dark brown ; anterior tibial feathers, grayish brown. 
“ Length, three feet seven inches ; extent of wings, ten feet two inches ; bill, 
three and a quarter inches along the back ; along the gap, which commences 
directly under the eye, to the tip of the lower mandible, three and one-third, 
and one and three quarters deep ; length of wing when folded, thirty-two 
inches ; length of tail, fifteen inches ; tarsus, four and a half ; middle, four and 
three-quarters ; hind claw, two and a half. 
“ The two stomachs, large and baggy; their contents in the individual 
described were fish, fishes’ scales, and entrails of various kinds ; intestines, 
large, but thin and transparent.” — Ed. 
