NORTHERN BAJLD EAGLE 337 



The very elaborate studies conducted by Dr. Francis H. Herrick on 

 the home life of the American eagle, and his numerous papers on 

 the subject, have given us a very complete picture of the nesting 

 activities of these great birds. His elaborate preparations, and the 

 great amount of time and effort devoted to this work, in spite of many 

 discouragements, can be appreciated only by reading these excellent 

 papers. Space will permit only a few extracts from them here, which 

 I think should be included under the northern race. 



The "great nest" (pi. 92) at Vermilion, Ohio, one of several on 

 which his observations were made, has a history covering 35 years; 

 and for more than 80 years eagles have nested in that vicinity, during 

 which time six nests are known to have been occupied. The "great 

 nest" was built not later than 1890 and was added to and occupied 

 every year thereafter until it was blown down in a March storm in 

 1925. This nest, when measured in 1922, was 12 feet high and 8I/2 feet 

 across its top; the upper rim was 81 feet from the ground in the dead 

 top of a shellbark hickory. Dr. Herrick (1924b) says that the favorite 

 trees in that vicinity are the sycamore and the shellbark hickory, but 

 the elm is sometimes used, and he found one in an ash and one in a pin 

 oak. Of the structure of the nest he writes : 



A nest of the first year consists of a great mass of sticks, gathered mainly 

 from the ground, borne to the nest-site in one or both talons, by either bird, and 

 laid individually with aid of the bill ; as this mass of faggots grows, greater 

 attention is paid to the periphery, where the coarser materials are more carefully 

 and more effectively interlaid and adjusted ; the center and interstices are filled 

 with dead weeds, cornstalks and stubble, with incidentally considerable earth 

 introduced with pieces of sod and with weeds. It is no wonder that with the 

 growth of years the core of such a structure comes to form a sodden mass of 

 vegetable mold. The largest sticks which I have taken from different nests were 

 a yard long and two inches thick, but many which I saw in a nest at Kelley's 

 Island this summer appeared to have a length of over six feet. 



He describes the process of nest building as follows (1932) : 



In mild seasons the Vermilion eagles begin to rebuild or refit their old eyrie in 

 the first days of February, or, as we might say, they build a "new nest" atop of 

 the old, for the building impulses are purely instinctive, and the eagles' eyrie is 

 virtually a composite affair, being made up of the consolidated increments of as 

 many years as it has seen service. In winters severe enough to cut off their 

 usual sources of food, and to prolong their absence from their customary haunts, 

 the seasonal building activity may be delayed until the first of March, but with 

 both birds working this labor can be performed in a few hours or days. 



After from ten to twelve weeks of daily use the top of the eyrie is apt 

 to be trodden flat, its surrounding sticks scattered and its straw bedding 

 ground to powder. The old eagles in each following year build a new rampart 

 of sticks, about a foot high, and fill up the intervening area with a thick layer 

 of dead grass or straw. This building fever is apt to recur with diminishing 

 force during the first weeks after the young are hatched, and their ardor 

 gradually wanes until it is finally satisfied by bringing only an occasional stick, 

 a wisp of dry grass, or a spray of oak leaves or of pine. Whole stalks of 



