316 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



phus Heermaun, in his Eeport of the survey between Fort Yuma and San 

 Francisco, speaks of seeing one of these birds near Livermore Pass, and of 

 meeting others in Northern California, and of an individual killed in the 



mountains near Mokelum- 

 ne Eiver. He regarded it, 

 both in that state and else- 

 where, as a rare and wild 

 bird. It is not mentioned 

 as occurring in Greenland. 

 It was found breeding in 

 Napa Valley, Cal, by Mr. 

 F. Gruber. 



A bird was secured alive 

 in Brighton, near Boston, 

 in 1837, by being taken in 

 a trap which had been set 

 for another purpose. Its 

 occurrence, however, near 

 the sea-coast, is very rare, 

 and even among the moun- 

 tains it is never found ex- 

 cept in occasional pairs. 

 It breeds in the mountain- 

 ous portions of Maine, New 

 Hampshire, Vermont, and 

 New York, and was for- 

 merly not unfrequent 

 among the cliffs of tlie Hudson River. Steamboats and railroads have, 

 however, driven this wild bird from its romantic retreats in that quarter. 

 In Franconia, N. H., for quite a number of years, a pair occupied a nest on 

 an inaccessible rock, near the top of a mountain, known as Eagle Cliff, in 

 sight of, and opposite, the Profile House. Repeated efforts have been made 

 to reach its nest, but thus far without success. In the summer of 1855 a 

 renewed attempt was made to scale the precipice over which the shelving 

 rock, on which the nest stands, projects. A party was formed, and although 

 they succeeded in ascending the mountain, which had never been achieved 

 before, they could reach only a point beyond and above, not the nest itself. 

 The attempt to pass to it was abandoned as too perilous. The party re- 

 ported a large collection of bones in its immediate vicinity, with other 

 evidences of the accumulated plunder of many years, as well as a plentiful 

 supply of fresh food at the time visited. 



Without here seeking to affect the question of identity of species, it is 

 interesting to note certain peculiarities in the European Golden Eagle so far 

 not noticed or of rare occurrence in the American birds. Mr. T. W. P. Orde 



Aquila chryxa. tus. 



