\ SOUTHERiSr BALD EAGLE 327 



of immaturity are seen, such as a few brown feathers in the head and 

 some dusky mottling near the tip of the tail. The length of time re- 

 quired to assume the fully adult plumage does not seem to have been 

 positively determined, and it may take longer than I have estimated. 

 Adults and immature birds have one complete annual molt, which 

 is very gradual, and prolonged through spring, summer, and fall. 

 The flight feathers are molted mainly during July, August, and 

 September. 



Food. — The large amount of food found in the nests of bald eagles 

 containing young indicates that the eaglets, even when small, are fed 

 on much the same food that the adults eat, or that the adults devour 

 much of the food that is brought to the nest, or perhaps both. 

 Mr. Pennock (MS.) found in a nest with two very young eaglets, 

 "certainly not over a few days old", an entire black duck, a headless 

 black duck, and a headless mullet that had weighed l^/o to 2 pounds. 

 In another nest he found a partly eaten lesser scaup duck, an entire 

 horned grebe, and three other grebes more or less mutilated. Mr. 

 Nicholson says (MS.) that the amount of food found in the nests is 

 astonishing, and often much of it has not been touched. He lists 

 rabbits, mostly marsh rabbits, other undetermined mammals, turtles, 

 coots, Florida ducks, lesser scaup ducks, pied-billed gi-ebes, little blue 

 herons, snowy egrets, terns, killdeers, catfish (by far the most fre- 

 quent species found and some up to 15 pounds in vreight), black bass, 

 sergeantfish, crevalle, pompano, and other fish. Under one nest he 

 found between 40 and 60 skulls of mammals, about the size of rabbits. 

 He has never found snakes in an eagle's nest, nor has he ever seen wool 

 or bones of lambs, even in the heart of the sheep country. There is 

 no doubt, however, that bald eagles do occasionally carry off lambs, 

 as several good observers have seen them do it, and the bones have 

 been found in and under their nests. Probably many of these were 

 picked up dead, but sheep herders generally regard eagles as destruc- 

 tive enemies. 



C. J. Maynard (1896) witnessed an attack by a bald eagle on a 

 brood of young pigs; the old sow was defending them vigorously, 

 but the eagle might have succeeded in securing one, if Mr. Maynard 

 had not interfered. Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1906) gives many interest- 

 ing details regarding the food of American eagles and says : 



At favorable opportunities this eagle preys upon fawns, and pressed by hunger 

 will sometimes attack a full-grown deer, particularly if the latter be wounded. 

 Remains of a mule deer {Odoeoileiis caniis) were found by Dr. E. A. Mearns in 

 the stomach of one from the Mogollon Mountains, Arizona. Mr. E. W. Nelson 

 is authority for the statement that in northern Alaska it feeds at times on young 

 reindeer {Rmtgifer arctictis). 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 fos {Urocyon scotti), evidently just killed, 

 which a pair of eagles was busy eating. Opossums (DidelpMs) and raccoons 



