312 THE EFFECTS OF COLD. 



and built entirely of sticks the same nest being 

 invariably used year after year by the same 

 pair of birds. Their food consists mainly of fish, 

 and it is a curious sight to watch an eagle plunge 

 into the water, seize a heavy salmon, and rise 

 with it without any apparent difficulty. Both 

 the osprey and bald-headed eagle fish with their 

 claws, never, as far as I have observed them, 

 striking at a fish with the beak ; during winter 

 they collect, young and old together, round the 

 Surnass lake ; and as the cold becomes intense, 

 they sit three and four on the limb of a pine- 

 tree, or in a semi- stupid state, all their craft and 

 courage gone, blinking and drowsy as an owl in 

 daytime. 



I have often, when walking under the trees 

 where these half-torpid monarchs of the air sit 

 side by side, fired and knocked one out from 

 betwixt its neighbours, without causing them 

 the slightest apparent alarm ; three I picked up 

 one morning frozen stiff as marble, having fallen 

 dead from off their perch. 



Why birds so powerfully winged should prefer 

 to remain where the winters are sufficiently 

 intense to freeze them to death, rather than go 

 southward, where food is equally abundant, is a 

 mystery I am unable to explain. Towards the 



