92 THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



What a contrast to this is the vast nest of the 

 sea-eagle, a great mass of sticks and brush-wood, 

 placed on the summit of the loftiest oaks! A 

 friend of Wilson's * ascending a pine tree, on the 

 top of which this huge structure was placed, found 

 it, to his disappointment, empty. It was built of 

 large sticks, some of them several feet in length, 

 within which lay sods of earth, sedge, grass, dry 

 reeds, &c. piled to the height of five or six feet, 

 by more than four in breadth. It was lined with 

 fresh pine-tops, and had little or no concavity. 

 Or, again, that of the double-crested cormorant, 

 which forms its nest of sea-weeds, some sticks, 

 moss, and clods of earth with grass adhering to 

 them, which it piles up into a solid mass, often as 

 high as three feet from the rock, with a diameter 

 of fifteen or eighteen inches at the top, and of 

 two-and-a-half feet at the base. This structure 

 is so strong as to resist the storms of winter, 

 requiring merely a little mending for occupation 

 in another season. Or that of the great white 

 heron, whose nests are often only a few feet 

 from high-water mark, are three feet in diameter, 

 and are loosely composed of sticks. Or the 

 * American Ornithology. 



