of the crop and stomach contents 

 of nine birds killed in the wild was 

 1.24: pounds, it is reasonable to as- 

 sume that when the golden eagle is 

 gorged, its crop and stomach ca- 

 pacity exceeds this amount. In 

 captivity, a golden eagle will con- 

 sume as much as 2 pounds of meat 

 daily (Oberholser 1906). 



The size of the burden carried in 

 (light varies with the characteristics 

 of the individual, its incentive, the 

 altitude, wind conditions, speed at 

 the moment, and possibly other fac- 

 tors. Once the momentum of its 

 first thrust from the ground is lost, 

 the golden eagle is dependent either 

 on its own laboring flight or on the 

 irregularities of air movements in- 

 cluding thermals. 



During the spring of 1937, C. C. 

 Sperry (field notes) tested the 

 weight-lifting ability of a wild bird 

 caught in the vicinity of Fort 

 Davis, Tex. He did this by fasten- 

 ing weights to its feet and then re- 

 leasing it. The 11-pound bird with 

 which he experimented could not 

 raise itself from the ground with a 

 51/4-pound weight attached to its 

 feet. 



Walker and Walker (1910) con- 

 ducted experiments with a captive 

 bird in good condition near sea level 

 in southern California. When re- 

 leased from a platform about 15 feet 

 above the ground, the eagle, with a 

 weight of 8 pounds attached, beat 

 the air wildly and was able to fly 

 only 10 to 14 yards before coming- 

 down to earth. 



Cameron (1908) observed an 

 eagle carrying a T-pound jackrabbit. 

 Under exceptionally favorable con- 

 ditions greater weights might be 



carried. Conversely, personal ob- 

 servations of the writer and various 

 i-eferences in the literature show 

 that under unfavorable conditions 

 golden eagles with no more than a 

 gorged crop are unable to "take off" 

 in the absence of air movements. 

 Dixon (1937) also observed that 

 with a burden the size of a ground 

 squirrel the eagle will often take a 

 circuitous route to its nest to utilize 

 the lifting power of air currents and 

 thermals. It is fundamental to 

 recognize, however, that the golden 

 eagle will kill animals that it cannot 

 carry away under any conditions. 

 In view of the apparent inability 

 of the eagle to carry heavy objects, 

 reports of eagles attempting to 

 carry off children are worthy of 

 comment. The writer has investi- 

 gated the facts associated with three 

 such alleged attacks. Two reported 

 attacks occurred during August 

 1950 near Albuquerque, N. Mex. 

 The first of these appeared to be 

 based on the fact that a Buteo hawk 

 did nothing more than circle 50 to a 

 100 feet over a suburban home. In 

 the second case, a "huge bald eagle" 

 was described by eye witnesses as 

 being a pure-black bird with about 

 a 3-foot wing-spread which alighted 

 in the yard of a suburban home only 

 to be frightened away by a dog. 

 The third alleged attack occurred 

 in the vicinity of Carlsbad, N. Mex., 

 during February 1948 (Arnold 

 1948) and was the only incident of 

 the three in which a golden eagle 

 even was involved. In this case the 

 bird had been in captivity for some 

 time and could not fly. The "at- 

 tack" actually was occasioned by a 



