28 
FALCO LEUCOCEPHALUS. 
description, often a pine or cypress, the bald eagle 
builds, year after year, for a long series of years. 
When both male and female have been shot from the 
nest, another pair has soon after taken possession. The 
nest is large, being added to and repaired everjr season, 
until it becomes a black prominent mass, observable at a 
considerable distance. It is formed of large sticks, sods, 
earthy rubbish, hay, moss, &c. Many have stated to 
me that the female lays first a single egg, and that, 
after having sat on it for some time, she lavs another ; 
when the first is hatched, the warmth of that, it is 
pretended, hatches the other. Whether this be correct 
or not, I cannot determine ; but a very respectable 
gentleman of Virginia assured me, that he saw a large 
tree cut down, containing the nest of a bald eagle, in 
which were two young, one of which appeared nearly 
three times as large as the other. As a proof of their 
attachment to their young, a person near Norfolk 
informed me, that, in clearing a piece of wood on his 
place, they met with a large dead pine tree, on which 
was a bald eagle’s nest and young. The tree being on 
fire more than half way up, and the flames rapidly 
ascending, the parent eagle darted around and among 
the flames, until her plumage w r as so much injured that 
it w r as with difficulty she could make her escape, and 
even then, she several times attempted to return to 
relieve her offspring. 
No bird provides more abundantly for its young than 
the bald eagle. Fish are daily carried thither in num- 
bers, so that they sometimes lie scattered round the 
tree, and the putrid smell of the nest may be distin- 
guished at the distance of several hundred yards. The 
young are at first covered with a thick whitish or 
cream coloured cottony down ; they gradually become 
of a gray colour as their plumage developes itself, 
continue of the brown gra^v until the third year, wdien 
the white begins to make its appearance on the head, 
neck, tail coverts, and tail ; these by the end of the 
fourth year are completely white, or very slightly tinged 
with cream ; the eye also is at first hazel, but gradually 
