350 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Austin H. Clark (1910) saw a large eagle that was probably of 

 this species near Unalaska on May 26, 1906. As it sailed almost 

 directly over his head and very low down, and as he was familiar 

 with the bird elsewhere, it hardly seems likely that he could have 

 been mistaken in a bird of such distinctive field marks. We failed 

 to find this eagle during the month we spent among the Aleutian 

 Islands and no other observers seem to have recorded it from there. 



Dr. Leonhard Stejneger (1885) says: "Pallas was very much mis- 

 taken in giving Bering Island as the true habitat of this bird. This 

 mistake arose from his having misunderstood Steller's description of 

 the bald eagle as referable to Th. pelagicus. The habitat is espe- 

 cially the mainland of Kamtschatka, where it is abundant, but also 

 all the countries bordering the Okotsk Sea. On Bering Island it is 

 only an occasional visitor, being chiefly an inland bird preferring the 

 quiet rivers and lakes surrounded by dense forests." 



We know very little about the habits of this great eagle beyond 

 the account of it given by Pallas, based on Steller's notes, and trans- 

 lated by Cassin (1856) as follows: 



This very large bird is frequent in the islands between Kamscliatka and the 

 American continent, especially in the islands noted for the unfortunate ship- 

 wreck and death of Bering. It appears very rarely in Kanischatka itself. In 

 the highest rocks overhanging the sea, it constructs a nest of two ells in diam- 

 eter, composed of twigs of fruit and other trees, gathered from a great dis- 

 tance, and strewed with grass in the centre, in which are one or two eggs, in 

 form, magnitude and whiteness, very like those of a Swan. The young is 

 hatched in the beginning of June, and has an entirely white woolly covering. 

 While Steller was cautiously viewing such a nest from a precipice, the parents 

 darted with such unforeseen impetuosity as nearly to throw him headlong; 

 the female having been wounded, both flew away, nor did they return to the 

 nest which was watched for two days. But, as if lamenting, they often sat 

 on an opposite rock. It is a kind of bird, bold, very cunning, circumspect, ob- 

 servant, and of savage disposition. Steller saw a Fox {Yulpes lafjopodns) 

 It lives also on dead substances cast up by the sea, and various offscourings 

 carried off by one and dashed upon the rocks, and afterwards torn in pieces, 

 of the ocean. 



The following account by Dr. Heinrich Bolau (1892) adds a little 

 to our knowledge of this rare eagle : 



Very little is known of the Haliaetus pelagicus in its free state. The Dorries 

 Brothers, collectors who resided for many years in Amour, in Eastern Si- 

 beria, and during that time watched the animal world very closely, saw only 

 four white-shouklered sea eagles among the many common sea eagles in the 

 neighborhood of Vladivostock, and only two black Corean eagles; and never 

 succeeded in shooting one of these rare birds. The Russian explorer Von Mid- 

 dendorff speaks of the sea eagle as being very cautious. Although he found 

 many nests, he very seldom saw the birds; apparently they were on the high 

 seas busily fishing. In August, so says our authority, the sea eagles were 

 quite numerous on the south coast of the Ohkotsk Sea, where they preferred 

 to build their nests on the summits of the cliffs, which frequently project 



