In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the manners of
the bald eagle, many accounts have reached me from various persons of
respectability, living on or near our sea coast. The substance of all
these I shall endeavour to incorporate with the present account.

Mr. John L. Gardiner, who resides on an island of three thousand
acres, about three miles from the eastern point of Long Island, from
which it is separated by Gardiner's Bay, and who has consequently many
opportunities of observing the habits of these birds, has favoured me
with a number of interesting particulars on this subject; for which I
beg leave thus publicly to return my grateful acknowledgment.

"The bald eagles," says this gentleman, "remain on this island during
the whole winter. They can be most easily discovered on evenings by
their loud snoring while asleep on high oak trees; and, when awake,
their hearing seems to be nearly as good as their sight. I think I
mentioned to you, that I had myself seen one flying with a lamb ten
days old, and which it dropped on the ground from about ten or twelve
feet high. The struggling of the lamb, more than its weight, prevented
its carrying it away. My running, hallooing, and being very near,
might prevent its completing its design. It had broke the back in the
act of seizing it; and I was under the necessity of killing it
outright to prevent its misery. The lamb's dam seemed astonished to
see its innocent offspring borne off in the air by a bird.

"I was lately told," continues Mr. Gardiner, "by a man of truth, that
he saw an eagle rob a hawk of its fish, and the hawk seemed so enraged
as to fly down at the eagle, while the eagle very deliberately, in the
air, threw himself partly over on his back, and, while he grasped with