322 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



At this period they are to be seen flying over the marshes and open 

 water, two or three in rapid chasing flights." They are probably 

 mated for life, but if one of a pair is killed the survivor promptly 

 secures a new mate, and occasionally the new mate is a bird in minia- 

 ture plmnage. Almost always both birds of a breeding pair are 

 white-headed adults. 



I have seen an immature bird mated with an adult, and several 

 other observers have reported it, but all seem to agree that it seldom 

 occurs. I have never heard of a mated pair in which both birds 

 were immature. Donald J. Nicholson, who has examined 125 eagles' 

 nests, tells me that only once has he found an immature eagle mated 

 with an adult. 



Nesting. — My experience with the nesting habits of the bald eagle 

 has been mainly in Florida, where this great bird is widely distrib- 

 uted, very common for a large bird, and so seldom disturbed by man 

 that it nests, with confidence in its safety, often close to human 

 habitations. I savv' two occupied nests on golf courses, where play- 

 ers were passing daily almost under the nesting trees. And sev- 

 eral nests were within sight of or even close to houses, or in open 

 parks near much-traveled roads. During the winter of 1924^25, 

 with the help of Oscar E. Baynard, we visited 18 eagles' nests in 

 Pinellas County. These were located mainly near the shores of 

 various bays or inlets, and all were in large longleaf pines, though 

 two of the nesting trees were dead. The nests were placed 35 to 63 

 feet above the ground, about half of them being between 50 and 60 

 feet up. A typical nest was found on an island near Pass-a-grille 

 on November 18, and the eagle flushed from the nest, but I did not 

 climb to it until November 27, when it contained two eggs about one- 

 quarter incubated. It was 40 feet up in a large pine in an open grove 

 of longleaf pines; it rested on several branches and was made of 

 large sticks and rubbish, with a lot of green and dry pine needles 

 and Spanish moss in the flat top; in the center was a pretty little 

 hollow, 20 inches in diameter and 4 or 5 inches deep, lined with the 

 soft gray moss and small pine needles, in which the eggs were par- 

 tially buried. It was a large nest, 7 feet high and 7i/^ by 5i/^ feet 

 across the flat top. There was considerable white down scattered 

 over the top of the nest. This pair of eagles laid a second set of 

 eggs in the same nest later in the winter; I climbed to it on Febru- 

 ary 14 and found two eggs in it; I left them to hatch, as I wanted 

 to photograph the young, but the eagles deserted the nest and the 

 eggs never hatched (pi. 86). 



I have seen three eagles' ne&is on the Florida Keys, the only nests 

 I have ever seen in Florida that were not in pine trees. These were 

 on the larger keys, where there was a heavy growth of large black 



