266 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



bear it off to the aerie; if such statements are true, the eagle clasps 

 the branch in its talons and breaks it off by sheer force as the fish 

 hawk is known to do, an easy matter for birds of their weight and 

 strength. The Vermilion eagles at a later phase of nest life would 

 now and again bring in their talons a cluster of living oak twigs 

 and lay them upon the nest, a curious habit, the meaning of which 

 will be considered in another place. 



Eagles are supjDOsed to be mated for life, and that when one is 

 bereft it goes in search of a new mate. So far as known its quest is 

 invariably successful, though it may return with a bird in juvenal 

 dress. This loss and substitution of a mate occurred at the Ver- 

 milion nest when one of the pair was shot, but this was some years 

 ago, and the exact circumstances could not be determined. It may 

 be doubted if either parent would desert or leave for long their 

 young when well started on the road of development; on the other 

 hand we might expect a lone bird to abandon its eggs per force 

 and, if again mated, to begin a new nesting cycle upon its return; 

 but whether this has actually happened or not can not be stated. 

 Since at least three years are passed before acquiring the perfect 

 coloring — white head, neck, and tail, and yellow bill — and since 

 young birds without doubt become sexually mature the first spring 

 after birth, one may expect to occasionally find one in brown or 

 juvenal dress mated to a full-colored bird; and Hoxie^ mentions 

 a case in Chatham County, Ga., in which both birds were in imma- 

 ture plumage, though the female was then beginning to show 

 distinct traces of white in the tail; the nest in this instance was 

 in process of building on March 6, 1909, but according to this 

 observer it did not contain young until May 17. The incubation 

 period was given as 83 days, and the time from hatching to flight 

 as 42 days. Fresh eggs were said to be found in that section from 

 mid-November to late March. Two cases were also mentioned, 

 at Savannah, in which this eagle laid a second set of eggs after 

 having been robbed of her first; in the one instance the first set 

 was taken on December 5, and in the other on the 12th of the 

 same month. There is a similar record for Lincoln County, Me.,* 

 where the eagles held to their aerie after being repeatedly robbed, 

 and in all probability they made their losses good. In this instance 

 the nest was in a tall dead pine, and what is more important it was 

 lined with green pine boughs, the possible significance of which will 

 be noticed at a later time. Two partially incubated eggs were taken 

 from this nest on April 7, 1891, and three, in which the development 



« Hoxle, W. J. Notes on tJie Bald Eagle in Georgia. The Auk, Vol. XXVII. p. 4o4. 

 Cambridge, 1910. 



* See The Auk, Vol. XXIII, p. 222. Cambridge, 1906. 



