a description of it under a new and very curious name. The proprietor
of this famed bird valued it at one hundred dollars, I at one !
While at the lovely village of Columbia, in South Carolina, Dr
ROBERT W. GIBBES, a man of taste and talent, as well as one who loves
the science of birds for its own sake, kept one of these Eagles for some
time in his aviary, and, being desirous of granting it more liberty, cut
across all the primary quills of one of its wings, and turned it loose in Ins
yard. No sooner was the bird at liberty, than it deliberately pulled out
the stump of each mutilated quill, in consequence of which the wing was
soon furnished anew. The Doctor told me that his first intention was to
draw them out himself, but this he found so difficult that he gave it up.
Do birds possess a power of contracting the sheaths of their feathers so
powerfully as to prevent their being pulled without great force ?
Since my earliest acquaintance with birds, I have felt assured of the ignoble
spirit of the White-headed Eagle, and the following fact strengthens
the impression. WILLIAM W. KUNHARDT, Esq. of Charleston, S. C,
kept one of these birds (a full-grown male) for many months. He one
day put a game-cock into its cage, to see how the prisoner would conduct
himself. The gallant cock at once set to, and beat the eagle in the
" handsomest manner,'" his opponent giving in at each blow, without paying
the least regard to the established rules of combat. Other cocks of
the common race proved equally formidable to the degraded robber of the
Fish-Hawk.
The White-headed Eagle seldom utters its piercing cry without throwing
its head backward until it nearly touches the feathers of the back.
It then opens its bill, and its tongue is seen to move as it emits its notes,
of which five or six are delivered in rapid succession. Although loud and
disagreeable when heard at hand, they have a kind of melancholy softness
when listened to at a great distance. When these birds are irritated, and
on the wing, they often thrust forth their talons, opening and closing
them, as if threatening to tear the object of their anger in pieces.
The synonyms and necessary references having been already given in
the first volume (page 169), it is unnecessary to repeat them here. WILSON
figured and described the young of the White-headed Eagle under
the name of the Sea Eagle, Falco ossifragus, although not without expressing
doubts.
F A L C O L E U C O C E P H A L U S , Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 26.
Nuttall, Manual, part i. p. 72.
A Q U I L A L E U C O C E P H A L A , Swains, and Richards. Fauna Boreali-Americana, part ii.
p. 15.
S E A E A G L E , F A L C O O S S I F K A G U S , Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. vii. p. 16. pL 55. fig. 2.
The Young Bird fully fledged is represented in Plate CXXVI.
In this state it differs greatly in its colours from the F. ossifragus
or young of the F. albicilla of Europe, with which it was confounded by
WILSON.
The bill is black above, bluish-grey towards the end of the lower
mandible, the cere, the base of the lower mandible, and the soft margins
of the bill at the angle, yellow tinged with green. The narrow elongated
feathers of the head and neck are dark-brown tipped with dull white, and
the general colour of the plumage above is dull hair-brown; the lower parts
having the feathers deep brown, broadly margined with greyish-white.
The quills are deep brown, and the tail-feathers are brownish white,
minutely mottled with dark brown, and having their extremities of that
colour. The iris is yellowish-brown, the feet greenish-yellow, the claws
black
The Adult birds have been described in vol. i. of the present work,
p. 169.