Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1884 — The Eagles of New England. [ARTICLE]

The Eagles of New England.

There are but two varieties of eagles found in New England—the bald eagle (Halinetua leucocephalus) and the golden eagle (Aquilla Canadensis). Both of these birds vary much in color and markings at different ages. The bald eagle is quite dark for the first year, and is called by those not familiar with the bird, the black eagle, and later, when grayish, the gray eagle ; and when in adult plumage, the" white-headed eagle. The young of the golden eagle has rings about the tail, and is called by hunters the ring-tailed eagle, and later, when the golden feathers appear about the neck, the golden eagle. There is one never-failing mark by which the bald and golden eagle can be distinguished, no matter what the color or markings. The golden eagle is always feathered to the toes. The bald eaglets feathered only down its thighs. The rough-legged falcon is feathered to the toes, with markings somewhat similar to the golden eagle, but the size of the two birds is so unlike that any novice need not blunder. The golden eagle is from thirty to forty inches from its beak to the tip of its tail, and from six to seven feet in alarextent. The rough-legged falcon is from nineteen to twenty-four, inches in length, and from four to four and a half feet in alar extent.

It is not uncommon to read of eagles captured measuring from four to four and a half feet from tip to tip. There are no such eagles. They are simply hawks or falcons. I once reeeived a letter from a professional gentleman informing me that one of his neighbors had captured a fine specimen of an eagle, which I eoul.i have by calling for it. I drove sixteen miles in the worst of traveling in March to get it, and found it nothing but a rough-legged falcon. In 1861, when writing a series of articles on our rapaciaa, I describ d a bird captured in our meadows as the Washington eagle—the bird was first desc. il> r .d by Audubon and named by him alter the immortal Washington. It is now very generally believed by ornithologists that the bird described by Audubon is not a new species, but a young, overgrown female of the bald eagle. The young of our rapacious birds are larger than the adult birds, and the female is larger than the male. These facts were unknown to ornithologists at that time, and many new species were described which since have proved to be immature birds. No bird has been captured in the last forty years that has fully answered the description given by Audubon, and if there was such a bird, with a host of ornithologists on the alert, some one must have found it