SEA EAGLE. 
37 
A few miles from tliis, is another eagle’s nest, built 
also on a pine tree, which, from the information received 
from the proprietor of the woods, had been long the 
residence of this family of eagles. The tree on which 
the nest was originally built, had been, for time imme- 
morial, or at least ever since he remembered, inhabited 
by these eagles. Some of his sons cut down this tree 
to procure the young, which were two in number ; and 
the eagles, soon after, commenced building another nest, 
on the very next adjoining tree, thus exhibiting a very 
particular attachment to the spot. The eagles, he says, 
make it a kind of home and lodging place , in all seasons. 
This man asserts, that the gray, or sea eagles, are the 
young of the bald eagle, and that they are several years 
old before they begin to breed. It does not drive its 
young from the nest like the osprey, or fish-hawk, hut 
continues to feed them long after they leave it. 
The specimen from which this description was taken 
measured three feet in length and upwards of seven 
feet in extent. The bill was formed exactly like 
that of the bald eagle, hut of a dusky brown colour ; 
cere and legs, bright yellow ; the latter, as in the bald 
eagle, feathered a little below the knee ; irides, a bright 
straw colour ; head above, neck and back, streaked with 
light brown, deep brown, and white, the plumage being 
white, tipt and centered with brown ; scapulars, brown; 
lesser wing-coverts, very pale, intermixed with white ; 
primaries, black, their shafts brownish white ; rump, 
pale brownish white ; tail, rounded, somewhat longer 
than the wings, when shut, brown on the exterior vanes, 
the inner ones white, sprinkled with dirty brown ; 
throat, breast, and belly, white, dashed and streaked 
with different tints of brown and pale yellow ; vent, 
brown, tipt with white ; femorals, dark brown, tipt with 
lighter; auriculars, brown, forming a bar from below 
the eye backwards ; plumage of the neck, long, narrow, 
and pointed, as is usual with eagles, and of a brownish 
colour, tipt with white. 
The sea eagle is said, by various authors, to hunt 
night, as well as during the day, and that, besides fish. 
