ld eagle pursuing to take it from him; the bald eagle has always
his head and tail white, and they carry such a lustre with them
that the white thereof may be discerned as far as you can see the
shape of the bird, and seems as if it were without feathers, and
thence it has its name bald eagle.

Sec. 24. 'Tis a good diversion to observe, the manner of the fishing-hawk's
preying upon fish, which may be seen every fair day all the summer long,
and especially in a morning. At the first coming of the fish in the
spring, these birds of prey are surprisingly eager. I believe, in the
dead of winter, they fish farther off at sea, or remain among the craggy
uninhabited islands upon the sea coast. I have often been pleasantly
entertained by seeing these hawks take the fish out of the water, and as
they were flying away with their quarry, the bald eagles take it from
them again. I have often observed the first of these hover over the
water and rest upon the wing some minutes together, without the least
change of place, and then from a vast height dart directly into the
water, and there plunge down for the space of half a minute or more, and
at last bring up with him a fish which he could hardly rise with; then,
having got upon the wing again, he would shake himself so powerfully
that he threw the water like a mist about him; afterwards away he'd fly
to the woods with his game, if he were not overlooked by the bald eagle
and robbed by the way, which very frequently happens. For the bald eagle
no sooner perceives a hawk that has taken his prey but he immediately
pursues and strives to get above him in the air, which if he can once
attain, the hawk for fear of being torn by him, lets the fish drop, and
so by the loss of his dinner compounds for his own safety. The poor fish
is no sooner loosed from the hawk's talons, but the eagle shoots himself
with wonderful swiftness after it, and catches it in the air, leaving
all further pursuit of the hawk, which has no other remedy but to go and
fish for another.

Walking once with a gentleman in an orchard by the river side, early in
the spring, before the fish were by us perceived to appear in shoal
water or near the shores, and before any had been caught by the people,
we heard a great noise in the air just over our heads, and looking up we
saw an eagle in close pursuit of a hawk that had a great fish in his
pounces. The hawk was as low as the apple trees before he would let go
his