306 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

wings, and, throwing back his magnificent head, looked
round at the ravens, as if wondering at their impudence in
approaching his breakfast; they kept a respectful silence,
and hopped further away. The royal bird then tured his
head in my direction, his bright eye that instant catching
mine, as it glanced along the barrel of my gun. He rose, I
drew the trigger, and he fell quite dead six yards from the
sheep. As one eagle is always followed by a second, I
remained quiet, in hopes that his mate was not within
hearing of my shot. I had not waited many minutes when
I saw the other eagle skimming low over the brow of the
hill towards me. She did not alight at once, but her eye
catching the dead. body of her mate, she wheeled up into
the air. I thought she was lost to me, when presently I
heard her wings brush close over my head, and she wheeled
round and round the dead bird, turning her head downwards
to make out what had happened. At times she stooped so
low that I could see the sparkle of her eye, and hear her
low, complaining cry. I watched the time when she turned
up her wing towards me, and dropped her actually on the
body of the other. She rose to her feet, and stood gazing
at me with a reproachful look, and would have done battle,
but death was busy with her, and as I was loading in haste
she reeled, and fell perfectly dead.”
The The white-headed or bald eagle, is a native of
White-Headed North America, and feeds equally on the produce
eee of the sea and of the land, but is particularly fond
of fish. “In procuring these,” says Wilson, “he displays in a very
singular manner the genius and energy of his character, which
is fierce, contemplative, daring and tyrannical, attributes not
exerted but on particular occasions, but when put forth overwhelm-
ing all opposition.” “Elevated,” says Wilson, in his “ American
Omithology,” “on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree,
that commands a high view of the neighbouring shore and
ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the