Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/200

164 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 his 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 DQctor 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 throw- ing 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.