14 NORTH AMERICAN EAGLES. 



reindeer (Rangifer arcticus). Even the wily fox sometimes meets 

 its fate at the talons of this powerful bird, as is shown by Mr. Vernon 

 Bailey's report that at Provo, Utah, a farmer found a gray fox 

 {Urocyon scotti), evidently just killed, which a pair of eagles was 

 busy eating. Opossums (Didelphis) and raccoons (Procyon lotor) 

 are sometimes captured, but the nocturnal habits of these animals 

 probably account for their not being more frequently obtained. Mr. 

 Thomas Mcllwraith mentions that an eagle shot on Hamilton Bay, 

 Ontario, had the bleached skull of a weasel hanging firmly fastened 

 by the teeth into the skin of its throat, a grewsome relic of a former 

 desperate struggle. 



Rodents of various kinds form an element of some importance in 

 the diet of the bald eagle. Where sc^uirrels (Sciurus) are plentiful 

 they are freely eaten. In California, according to Dr. J. G. Cooper, 

 large numbers of the destructive ground squirrels, or spermophiles 

 (Citellus), w^ere formerly killed on some of the ranches, the birds 

 receiving protection in consequence; and instances were reported 

 to him of young eagles reared from the nest and kept in a 

 semi-domestic state, which went out dally to kill squirrels — a hint, 

 perhaps, for California wheat raisers. Prairie dogs (Oynomys ludcvi- 

 cianus) are eaten occasionally, but not so commonly as doubtless 

 they would be were this eagle more numerous in the regions where 

 these destructive rodents most abound. Mr. William Lloyd reports 

 visiting a bald eagle's nest containing young, to which the adult 

 birds were seen to bring two prairie dogs; and skins of this mammal 

 were found among the debris of the nest. Rabbits are frequently 

 taken for food ; rats and even mice occasionally. 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Unfortunatelv the bald eagle's fondness for mammal flesh leads it 

 to attack domestic animals. This happens rarely to the larger kinds, 

 though a sickly or weakling calf may once in a while be killed ; but 

 sheep and hogs in some places suffer considerably. Full-grown 

 healthy sheep are seldom killed, the attacks being confined principally 

 to sick or weakly animals and to lambs. Alexander Wilson quotes 

 at some length from Mr. John L. Gardiner, who a hundred years ago 

 lived near the eastern end of Long Island, New York, showing that this 

 ^agle at that early day had already acquired a fondness for mutton. 

 Mr. Amos W. Butler mentions" an eagle taken in Knox County, 

 Ind., in October, 1896, that had killed two lambs. Mr. A. F. Gray 

 records'' an instance at North Coventry, Chester County, Pa., of an 

 eagle that carried off a large lamb and returned the following day for 

 another; and Mr. J. Otis Fellows fells'^ of an eagle that at Hornells- 



o Twenty-second Ann. Rep. Dep. Geol. and Nat. Res. Indiana, 1897 (1898), p. 794. 

 b Forest and Stream, V, 1876, p. 195. 

 c Ibid., X, 187S, p. 319. 



