Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/272

262 knives, nails, and gun-flints. The roots of Cyperus and Thuja are also used for the same purpose. Cockqua kept his promise, and after three months brought me the hats, one on which had initials woven in with a dark-stained Fucus. I gave him for these and for ten pieces of wood, made of Spiraea Capitata, each tipped with a beaver's tooth, and used in playing one of their games, one blanket, value 7 shillings, and some beads, rings, and needles, as a present to the little girl who wrought the hats. When returning last summer from the Grand Rapids, I saw one of these Silver-headed Eagles take a small sturgeon out of the water, and as he was soaring over my head, I lifted my gun and brought him down. The claws of the bird were so firmly clenched through the cartilaginous substance of the fish's back, that he would not let go till I introduced a needle into the vertebrae of his neck. The sturgeon measured fifteen inches long, and weighed four pounds.

The large Brown Eagle is less plentiful than most species of its tribe, and not so shy. It is also less ferocious than the Silver-headed Eagle, of which it stands in great fear. I was able to kill but one, and an examination of its stomach, which was full of small birds, seemed to show that it does not live on fish.

The Small Eagle appears to be rare, as I never saw more than one pair, of which I killed one. Its flight is very quick, and though inferior in size and strength to the other Eagles of this country, it boldly pursues them all. I can not say what is the nature of its food. The legs and feet are of a light and bright blue.

The hunters inform me that the Calumet Eagle (Aquila Chrysaetos, Richardson and Swainson), is found two degrees south of the Columbia, in the winter season, and I saw two specimens which had been killed there.

A species of Buzzard or Vulture (Sarcoramphos Callfornianus of Vigors) is the largest bird seen here, except the Wild Swan. I killed only one of these interesting birds, but the buckshot which went through its head spoiled the speci-