Identifier: birdsofnewenglan00sam (find matches)
Title: The birds of New Englandand adjacent states: containing descriptions of the birds of New England ... together with a history of their habitats ... ; with illustrations of many species of the birds, and accurate figures of their eggs
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Samuels, Edward Augustus, 1836-1908
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: Boston : Noyes, Holmes
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ptly hooked; wings long;tarsi rather short. Adult. —Bend, tail, and its upper and under coverts, white; entire other plumagebrownish-black, generally with the edges of the feathers paler; bill, feet, and irides,or iris, yellow. Younger. — Entire plumage, including head and tail, dark-brown; paler on thethroat; edges of the feathers paler or fulvous, especially on the under parts; tailmore or less mottled with white, which color, in more advanced age, extends over alarge portion of the tail, especially on the inner webs; bill brownish-black; iridesbrown. Total length, female, about thirty-five to fortj inches; wing, twenty-three totwenty-five inches; tail, fourteen to fifteen inches. Male, thirty to thirty-four inches:wing, twenty to twenty-two inches; tail, thirteen to fourteen inches. 52 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. This beautifuland well-known bird is occasionally seen indifferent parts of New England throughout the year, mostcommonly near the seacoast or in the neighborhood of large
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tracts of water. I have had several opportunities of observ-ing and studying its habits, but have discovered nothing thathas not been already presented to the public. Its flight is THE WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 63 rapid and graceful, and is often prolonged for hours withapparent ease. It feeds upon wild-fowl, wild geese, andsmall animals, and is very partial to fish, which it robs fromthe Fish Hawk (P. Carolinensis), and finds cast upon theshore, dead. Wilson, in describing its attacks on the Fish Hawk,says:— Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; feedingequally on the produce of the sea and of the land; possessingpowers of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests them-selves ; unawed by any thing but man; and, from the etherealheights to which he soars, looking abroad, at one glance, on an im-measurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean, deep belowhim, — he appears indifferent to the little change of localities orseasons ; as, in a few minutes, he can pass f

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