Kites, Hawks, Eagles, etc. 



patiently over the waves up and down the coast for a fish. 

 Instantly one is caught, down falls the eagle like Jove's thunder- 

 bolt from Mount Olympus, and as escape from so overpowering 

 a foe is impossible, the successful fisher quickly drops its prey, while 

 the eagle, dexterously catching it before it touches the water, 

 makes off to his eyrie among the clouds to enjoy it at leisure. 

 Dead fish cast up on the beach, carrion disgorged by intimidated 

 vultures, sea and shore birds (particularly in the South) are 

 devoured by this rapacious feeder. Ducks, geese, gulls, and 

 notably coots, that he condescends to catch himself, are favorite 

 morsels when fish fail. It is said wounded birds suit this 

 unsportsmanlike hunter best. These are picked clean of feathers 

 before the flesh is torn from their bones. In the interior young 

 domestic animals are carried off, but scientists raise their eye- 

 brows at tales of children being borne away by eagles ; yet it 

 would seem that some rare instances are well authenticated. 

 Audubon had an adult male in captivity that weighed only 

 fourteen and a half pounds, and although it ate enormously one 

 may grant that an uncaged bird might weigh twenty pounds ; 

 still a young child often exceeds that figure, and there is the 

 great resistance of the air to be overcome as well. 



When the nesting season approaches, which in the south 

 begins in February and at the far north in May, the eagles may 

 be seen hunting in couples and soaring in great spirals with 

 majestic calm at a dizzy height. As they swoop earthward, the 

 tops of the trees over which they pass sway in the current of air 

 they create. These birds, like most of their class, remain mated 

 throughout their long life, but often quarrel at other seasons than 

 this, when one encroaches upon the prescribed territory where 

 the other is hunting. Now they are especially noisy : cac-cac- 

 cac screams the male, a sound too like a maniac's laugh to be 

 pleasant. The cry of the female is more harsh and broken, 

 sufficiently different for one well up in field practice to tell the sex 

 of the bird by its voice. 



A tall pine tree near water is, of all nesting sites, the favorite. 

 Next to that a rocky ledge of some bold, inaccessible cliff, or that 

 failing too, the bulky cradle may be laid directly on the ground ; 

 but whatever site may be chosen, that forever remains home, a 

 shelter at all seasons, the dearest spot on earth. An immense 

 accumulation of sticks, sod, weeds, corn stalks, hay, pine tops, 



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