416 THE BALD EAGLE. 
eggs in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, on Feb- 
ruary 11th. Usually they do not commence to lay 
until March, and correspondingly later as they 
advance northward” (Bendire). 
= The nests, which in this section are always 
placed well up in good-sized trees, are repaired 
and added to year by year until they come to be 
immense and historic structures. Not only are 
the trees in which they are built usually hard to 
climb, but it is often difficult, or well nigh im- 
possible, to pass the bulging sides of the nest so as to ob- 
tain access to the eggs themselves. 
Both sexes share the duty of incubation, which lasts 
about a month, and the two birds are sometimes to be seen 
together at the nest, the one standing and the other squat- 
ting upon the eggs. The eggs are two, rarely three, pure 
white or bluish white, and are laid at intervals of two or 
three days. There is often quite a discrepancy in the size 
of the eggs, the larger being presumably laid first. If the 
eggs are destroyed the birds will not nest again until the 
following year. ‘The young, when hatched, remain in the 
nest three or four months before they are able to fly, and 
even then sometimes require considerable urging on the 
part of their ambitious parents. 
It must be evident that those who live in the vicinity 
of an Eagle’s nest become very much attached to these 
stately birds, and view their comings and goings with 
unfailing interest. In some parts of Erie and Ottawa 
counties the Eagles are regarded very highly, and any 
one who attempted to molest one of them would get into 
serious trouble with its human neighbors. This is quite 
as it should be. The people of this state could 
far better afford to reimburse the owners of 
poultry and sheep for some trifling losses in- 
flicted upon them, than they could to be de- 
prived of the majestic presence of these sym- 
bolic birds. ‘The killing of a Bald Eagle ought 
to be a penitentiary offense, and the man who 
Taken near Sandusky. Photo by R. F. Griggs would wantonly destroy one of their monu- 
mental landmarks is beneath contempt. 
\ CHERISHED LANDMARK. 
