SEA EAGLE. 
309 
Were we disposed, after the manner of some, to substitute, 
for plain matters of fact, all the narratives, conjectures, and 
fanciful theories of travellers, voyagers, compilers, & c. relative 
to the history of the Eagle, the volumes of these writers, from 
Aristotle down to his admirer, the Count de Buffon, would 
furnish abundant materials for this purpose. But the author 
of the present work feels no ambition to excite surprise and 
astonishment at the expense of truth, or to attempt to elevate 
and embellish his subject beyond the plain realities of nature. 
On this account, he cannot assent to the assertion, however 
eloquently made, in the celebrated parallel drawn by the 
French naturalist, between the Lion and the Eagle, viz. that 
the Eagle, like the Lion, 66 disdains the possession of that 
property which is not the fruit of his own industry, and rejects 
with contempt the prey which is not procured by his own 
exertions since the very reverse of this is the case, in the 
conduct of the Bald and the Sea Eagle, who, during the 
summer months, are the constant robbers and plunderers of 
the Osprey, or Fish Hawk, by whose industry alone both are 
usually fed. Nor that, “ though famished for want of prey, he 
disdains to feed on carrion ,” since we have ourselves seen the 
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 
proceeded from the intermixture of different species of Eagles, 
the young of which were not Ospreys, only Sea Eagles; 
66 which Sea Eagles,” says he, “ breed small Vultures, which 
engender great Vultures, that have not the power of propa- 
gation.” * 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 may be safely asserted, that there is no habit 
* Hist. Nat. lib. x. c, 3. 
