GOLDEN EAGLE. 27 



Mr. J. Tevebaugh of Cochetopa Pass, Colorado, that one of these 

 birds once assailed one of^his young calves, but was beaten off by the 

 mother. Pigs are sometimes attacked even in their pens, and Mr. 

 A. W. Butler states that an eagle was killed in White County, Ind., 

 in December as it was hovering and about to swoop down on a litter 

 of little pigs. It once in awhile makes a meal off a dog; and it has 

 been known to pounce upon a domestic cat, but such an occurrence 

 is doubtless unusual. 



WILD BIRDS. 



Birds of various kinds, together with mammals, form the bulk of 

 the golden eagle's food. The larger species of birds are the ones 

 most commonly taken, while the smallest song birds pass practically 

 unnoticed. Upland game birds appear to be preferred to all other 

 birds and are persistently hunted. 



The different kinds of grouse, no dou})t from their general distri- 

 bution over the areas occupied by this eagle, are much sought by it 

 as food, both in Europe and America. In eastern North America 

 the ruffed grouse (Bonasa UTnhellus) suffers, in the West the blue 

 grouse (Dendraga/pus ohscurus), the sage grouse (Centrocercus uro- 

 phasianus), and especially the sharp-tailed grouse (Pedioecetes phasi- 

 anellus and subspecies). Mr. Robert Ridgway records an instance 

 of the pursuit of a sage grouse by a pair of eagles on the East Hum- 

 boldt Mountains, Nevada, in which the grouse was overtaken in open 

 chase and seized and borne away the moment it alighted on the 

 ground. Near Lewiston, Idaho, Mr. H. W. Henshaw shot a golden 

 eagle that was eating a freshly killed sharp-tailed grouse, and the 

 Nez Perces Indians told him that grouse were often killed by golden 

 eagles. Dr. J. C. Merrill found a dead sharp-tailed grouse (Pedioecetes 

 pJiasianellus columbianus) in an eagle's nest near Fort Custer, Mont., 

 and Mr. E. S. Cameron, in regard to the nest in Montana previousl}' 

 referred to, says that his eagles must have destroyed large numbers of 

 sharp-tailed grouse, since he never visited the nest without finding 

 one; and when the young eagles were nearly grown they were fed 

 almost exclusively on this game bird. The killing of so many in 

 their breeding season is of course particularly disastrous to the 

 species. From what is known, the golden eagle seems to be partial 

 to this grouse, and the total annual destruction must be very large, 

 though there are no accurate means of determining its extent. Still 

 an estimate of the probable number of sharp-tailed grouse destroyed 

 may be interesting. Allowing a pair of eagles to every 100 square 

 miles in Montana, which is probably conservative, there would be 

 1,450 pairs in the State, and should each one of these pairs kill only 

 one grouse per day for the three months during which eaglets 

 remained in the nest, 130,500 grouse would be destroyed in Montana 

 during this period alone, while it is not to be supposed that at other 



