. The naturalist's library; containing scientific and popular descriptions of man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles and insects; . inter blasts whistled over our heads, and the cold from which Isuffered had, in a great degree, extinguished the deep interest which, at otherseasons, this river has been wont to awake in me. I lay stretched besideour patroon ; the safety of the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that 1 Falco Washingtonianusj Audubon. AVE S—EAGLE. 443 railed forth my attention was the multitude of ducks, of different species,accompanied by vast flocks of swans, which from t
. The naturalist's library; containing scientific and popular descriptions of man, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles and insects; . inter blasts whistled over our heads, and the cold from which Isuffered had, in a great degree, extinguished the deep interest which, at otherseasons, this river has been wont to awake in me. I lay stretched besideour patroon ; the safety of the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that 1 Falco Washingtonianusj Audubon. AVE S—EAGLE. 443 railed forth my attention was the multitude of ducks, of different species,accompanied by vast flocks of swans, which from time to time would passus. My patroon, a Canadian, had been engaged many years m the fur trade ;he was a man of much intelligence, who, perceiving that birds had engagedmy curiosity, seemed only anxious to find some new object to divert sea eagle flew over us. How fortunate! he exclaimed ; this is whatI could have wished. Look, Sir the great sea eagle, and the only one Ihave seen since I left the lakes. I was instantly on my feet, and, havingobserved it attentively, concluded, as I lost it in the distance, that it was ?. species quite new to me. My patroon assured me that such birds wereindeed rare; that they sometimes followed the hunters, to feed on the entrailsof animals they had killed, when the lakes were closed by the ice, but, whenopen, they would dive in the daytime after fish, and snatch them up in themanner of the fishing hawk ; that they roosted generally on the shelves ofthe rocks, wrhere they built their nests, of which he had discovered severalby the quantity of white exuviae scattered below. His account will be foundto accord with the observations which I had afterwards an opportunity ofmaking myself. Being convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists,I felt particularly anxious to learn its habits, and in what particulars it 444 AVES—EAGLE. differed from the rest of its genus. Mr Wilson had confounded it with theDald or white headed eagle, one of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
