518 THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 
in fall and winter. They become very closely attached to a given stretch 
of territory and probably have the mountain areas pretty definitely par- 
celled out amongst them. Barring accidents, the birds are mated for life, 
and thru the regularity of their habits it becomes possible to recognize 
individuals at sight. 
Among the foothills and along the banks of the Columbia with its 
tributaries, the Yellow-bellied Marmot (Arctomys flaviventer avarus), locally 
known as Woodchuck or Ground-hog, is its staple article of diet; and its 
cousin, the Whistler (4. caligatus), enjoys the same distinction in the 
mountains. Lesser rodents are captured on the one hand, and the young 
of deer, sheep, and goats on the other. Birds are not overlooked. Ducks, 
and occasionally Geese, are taken in midair, while Sharp-tailed Grouse and 
Sage Hens are seized upon the ground. The Eagle hunts chiefly in high 
lazy circles, from which he descends like a bolt when prey is sighted. He 
is also the first to appear in the case of a wounded deer or goat in the 
mountains. If the hunter is tardy, the Eagle gets at least the tidbits and 
sometimes ruins the hide. So great is the bird’s solicitude in these matters 
that he has been accused of giving the coup de grace to the dying buck. 
The Magpie keeps tab on the royal progress, and when he suspects that 
there is “something doing,” hurries up to glean crumbs in the wake of his 
surfeited lord. 
Bendire is authority for the statement that nests of the Golden Eagle 
are oftenest built in trees, and cites the Blue Mountains of Washington, 
Oregon, and Idaho as examples of this practice. In the Cascades, however, 
I have never found them except on cliffs. Nests are occupied year after 
year, save that the same pair may maintain two establishments a mile or 
so apart, and resort now to one and now to the other at the dictates of 
caution, or possibly for sanitary reasons. Each season the occupied nest is 
freshened up by the addition of a layer of fir boughs, having stems up to 
an inch or more in diameter. Deposition of eggs occurs in March, some- 
times (as in the case of the Conconnully nest) as early as March tst. In- 
cubation lasts about four weeks, and the young birds require to be cherished 
in the nest for a peried of eight weeks longer. 
Should a nest be robbed, the Eagles will not nest again that season; 
and if persecuted, they will refrain from nesting altogether sooner than 
abandon chosen territory. To those who love Nature in her wilder moods 
rather than the proprieties of park and garden, the passing of the Eagle is 
one of the saddest of the “pains of progress.” 
