33G BULLETIN 1G7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUIM 



"six feet four inches, by six feet eleven inches over-all, and the out- 

 side depth was four feet. The nest cavity was lined with duck 

 feathers, dry moss and grasses. It measured sixteen inches in diam- 

 eter and was four inches deep." Of another huge nest that he found 

 on Hawkins Island, Prince William Sound, he writes: 



This nest was located in a large hemlock tree sixty-two feet from the ground. 

 This was an immense pile of wood even for an eagle's nest. These are the 

 actual measurements taken with a steel tape; outside diameter, eight by ten 

 feet ; depth, four feet ; nest cavity, twelve by twelve inches ; depth four 

 inches. The nest was firmly supported by an eight-inch forked limb ; but the 

 lower portion of the nest was fast moldering aw'ay, and a green currant vine 

 had become firmly anchored in the rotting wood and twined its graceful 

 green tendrils around one side of the nest. The nest was practically level 

 across the upper surface, which was carpeted with moss. The nest cavity was 

 lined with gull feathers and fine dry moss. I stretched out across the narrowest 

 diameter of the nest but my arms and legs extended were not visible from 

 below. This nest must support at least a ton of snow during the winter, so I 

 had no hesitancy in venturing out upon it. 



Edward A. Preble (MS. account) says: 



In the Mackenzie Valley, northern Canada, the bald eagle is generally dis- 

 tributed but is nowhere really common. Here it usually nests in tall trees, as 

 did those recorded by MacFarlane (1891) and observed by him on Lockhart and 

 Anderson Rivers in the late 1860's. In my own experience I found them even 

 fairly common only in the mountainous country just south of McTavish Bay, 

 Great Bear Lake, late in August 1903. On a high cliff on the shores of Lake 

 Hardisty a nest was observed on August 18, and near it lingered a pair of old 

 birds, evidently still attending their young. To the northward of this point the 

 birds were observed practically every day from August 22 to 27, and here several 

 aeries, all on high cliffs on the low mountain chain that our canoe route pene- 

 trated, indicated the section most favored by bald eagles in all the vast region 

 covered by me during several summers' explorations. From all the Mackenzie 

 region the bald eagle must absent itself from November to March. 



Samuel F. Rathbun tells me that bald eagles are rather common 

 along the coast and near some of the remote lakes in Washington State, 

 where he knows of several nesting sites. Of one nest he says : 



This structure was a very large affair and no doubt had been in use off and on 

 over a period of years. It was placed at a height of 130 feet, in a large black 

 Cottonwood having a diameter of nearly 6 feet at its base. The tree grew on 

 rather swampy ground, and other trees of the same kind were scattered about 

 with some mixed growth, but as a whole the section was quite open. This pair 

 of birds, after having been robbed laid a second set of eggs and raised a brood 

 in another nest. He mentions another nest wuthin a few miles of this locality 

 that was at a height of between 160 and 180 feet, in a fir tree that was about 8 

 feet in diameter, measured at a man's lieight. 



M. P. Skinner's notes from Yellowstone Park refer to two nests in 

 the tops of lodgepole pines, one of which was occupied for four years 

 in succession. Nests in Ontario have been recorded in chestnut, syca- 

 more, elm, poplar, oak, and hemlock trees ; one in a poplar was as low 

 as 20 feet. 



