the whole vultures at their proper distance for several days. He has
also been seen navigating the same river on a floating carrion, though
scarcely raised above the surface of the water, and tugging at the
carcass, regardless of snags, sawyers, planters, or shallows. He
sometimes carries his tyranny to great extremes against the vultures.
In hard times, when food happens to be scarce, should he accidentally
meet with one of these who has its craw crammed with carrion, he
attacks it fiercely in the air; the cowardly vulture instantly
disgorges, and the delicious contents are snatched up by the eagle
before they reach the ground.

The nest of this species is generally fixed on a very large and lofty
tree, often in a swamp or morass, and difficult to be ascended. On
some noted tree of this description, often a pine or cypress, the bald
eagle builds, year after year, for a long series of years. When both
male and female have been shot from the nest, another pair has soon
after taken possession. The nest is large, being added to and repaired
every season, until it becomes a black prominent mass, observable at
a considerable distance. It is formed of large sticks, sods, earthy
rubbish, hay, moss, &c. Many have stated to me that the female lays
first a single egg, and that, after having sat on it for some time,
she lays another; when the first is hatched, the warmth of that, it is
pretended, hatches the other. Whether this be correct or not, I cannot
determine; but a very respectable gentleman of Virginia assured me,
that he saw a large tree cut down, containing the nest of a bald
eagle, in which were two young, one of which appeared nearly three
times as large as the other. As a proof of their attachment to their
young, a person near Norfolk informed me, that, in clearing a piece of
wood on his place, they met with a large dead pine tree, on which was
a bald eagle's nest and young. The tree being on fire more than half