4o6 



Bird - Lore 



the ground, and the edge of the nest was one hundred and thirty-one feet in 

 the air. 



It is one thing to cUmb to a Bald Eagle's nest, and quite another to look 

 into it when you get there. Above my head was a great accumulation of 



fragments of limbs and twigs, which 

 made a mass fully five feet across and 

 nearly as high. This great structure 

 was supported by three limbs which 

 represented the main fork of the tree. 

 It was only by tearing away several 

 armfuls of this material, which, how- 

 ever, in no way damaged the usefulness 

 of the nest, that I was able to climb one 

 of the limbs to a position where I could 

 see into the eyrie. 



This was almost flat, with a shallow, 

 basin-like depression in the center. 

 Here lay two Eaglets covered with a 

 whitish down. They offered no resist- 

 ance to my handling, and the only 

 complaint uttered was a low, whistling 

 cry. 



The ascent of this tree was made on 

 the twentieth of January, and, as Eagles 

 sit on their eggs for about a month, the 

 presence of the Eaglets showed that the 

 eggs must have been laid some time in 

 December. 



The next year I again cUmbed this huge forest monarch, and, as before, 

 the old Eagles circled around at a sufficient distance to render them safe from 

 gun-lire had I entertained any designs on their lives. This 

 The Eaglets second visit was on January 14, and this time I found the nest 

 to contain young birds, the expanse of whose wings measured 

 three and a half feet from tip to tip. The eggs from which they came must 

 have been laid before Thanksgiving Day. This was in Florida, in many parts 

 of which Bald Eagles are abundant. Farther north, the eggs are deposited 

 later in the year, and in Alaska they are not laid until April. 



Usually the nests are placed well back in swamps, or along unfrequented 

 stretches of lake-shore or coast-line. They are ordinarily near water; in fact, 

 all of the twenty or more nests that I have found were so situated that, while 

 brooding the eggs, the old Eagles could look out over some body of water. 

 If the birds are not killed, the same eyrie is often occupied for a great many 

 years in succession, and is repaired each season by the addition of a new layer 



NEST OF A FLORIDA BALD EAGLE 



