BALD EAGLE. 
27 
some few feet, and a large bald eagle bearing off a frag- 
ment of its frock, which being the only part seized, and 
giving w ay, providentially saved the life of the infant. 
The appetite of the bald eagle, though habituated to 
long fasting, is of the most voracious and often the most 
indelicate kind. Fish, when he can obtain them, are 
preferred to all other fare. Young lambs and pigs are 
dainty morsels, and made free with on all favourable 
occasions. Ducks, geese, gulls, and other sea fowl, are 
also seized with avidity. The most putrid carrion, 
when nothing better can be had, is acceptable; and 
the collected groups of gormandizing vultures, on 
the approach of this dignified personage, instantly 
disperse, and make way for their master, waiting his 
departure in sullen silence, and at a respectful distance, 
on the adjacent trees. 
In one of those partial migrations of tree squirrels 
that sometimes take place in our western forests, many 
thousands of them were drowmed in attempting to cross 
the Ohio ; and at a certain place, not far from Wheeling, 
a prodigious number of their dead bodies w^ere floated to 
the shore by an eddy. Here the vultures assembled in 
great force, and had regaled themselves for some time, 
when a bald eagle made his appearance, and took sole 
possession of the premises, keeping the whole vultures 
at their proper distance for several days. He has also 
been seen navigating the same river on a floating 
carrion, though scarcely raised above the surface of the 
water, and tugging at the carcass, regardless of snags, 
sawyers, planters, or shallows. He sometimes carries 
his tyranny to great extremes against the vultures. In 
hard times, when food happens to be scarce, should he 
accidentally meet with one of these who has its craw r 
crammed with carrion, he attacks it fiercely in the air ; 
the cowardly vulture instantly disgorges, and the deli- 
cious contents are snatched up by the eagle before 
they reach the ground. 
The nest of this species is generally fixed on a very 
large and lofty tree, often in a sw amp or morass, and 
difficult to be ascended. On some noted tree of this 
