BALD EAGLE. 15 



ville, N. Y., ill the spring of 1878 swooped down on a flock of sheep, 

 and, as he expressed it, "made a breakfast on lamb chops before he 

 could be driven ofl"." Mr. H. W. Henshaw, writing of the northern 

 Pacific coast region of the United States, says that many lambs 

 were annually destroyed by the bald eagle. 



Many writers note the destruction of swine by the bald eagle, but 

 these reports almost all refer to young animals. In places, par- 

 ticularly the southeastern United States, where this eagle is common, 

 and where large numbers of pigs are raised and allowed to run more 

 or less wild, there is from this source a loss that at times is by no 

 means insignificant, the bird occasionally venturing boldly even close 

 to human dwellings in pursuit of its prey. Wilson records that in 

 the lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina in his time it destroyed 

 great numbers of young pigs, and that complaints there against the 

 bird were very general. A writer in Forest and Stream" states 

 that a bald eagle was killed by a Mr. Towry near Smithville, Miss., 

 as it was feeding on one of two hogs that it had just killed; and Mr. 

 C. J. Maynard says that in Florida he once saw three eagles attack- 

 ing several young pigs which were, however, valiantly defended by 

 their mother. 



Mr. Vernon Bailey reports that on one occasion the little dog of a 

 ranchman in the Davis Mountains, Texas, was picked up by a bald 

 eagle, but finally dropped. Dogs are, however, sometimes eaten. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The bald eagle does not disdain carrion, and in some parts of the 

 arid West it lives at times to a considerable extent on the cattle and 

 smaller domestic animals that fall victims to drought or other catas- 

 trophe. Several of the early ornithological writers, including Wilson, 

 mention its abundance along the river below Niagara Falls, whither 

 it used to resort for fish and for the carcasses of the various animals 

 that had been precipitated over the falls. Wilson tells also that on 

 one occasion when many thousands of tree squirrels were drowned 

 in attempting to cross the Ohio River not far from Wheeling, W. Va., 

 and a great number drifted to the shore, a bald eagle for several suc- 

 cessive days regaled itself on them. Carrion was found in the 

 stomachs of two eagles examined by Dr. A. K. Fisher; Mr. Horace A. 

 Kline has seen this bird along the Wakulla River in Florida feeding 

 on the carcass of an ox, again on that of a sheep: and Mr. L. M. 

 Turner, while visiting Atkha Island in the Aleutian chain, Alaska, 

 found a pair wrangling with gulls and ravens over the decaying 

 remains of a sea-lion. Sometimes it drives away the gathered 

 vultures or the dogs from their repast and keeps them at a respectful 



a "G. C. E.," Forest and Stream, VllI, 1877, p. 17. 



