THE GOLDEN-EAGLE 89 



brought food daily, but the female nearly always fed the youngster, 

 and only once was the male seen to remove offending matter from 

 the nest. 



For five long months the youngster demands every hour of his 

 parents' day. But sooner or later, as with all the Accipitres, there 

 comes a change : the youngsters, guarded with such loving care, 

 are suddenly driven forth to seek their fortunes in the great world 

 outside. But this seeming callousness is, as a matter of fact, a 

 necessary sternness : for if the young remained on the scene of their 

 birth there would speedily arise a struggle for the means of subsist- 

 ence, for an area quite sufficient to support a pair of eagles will be 

 quite inadequate to maintain twice that number. But circumstances 

 alter cases, as is shown by the fact that in the Algerian Sahara, Mr. 

 Whitaker reminds us, Canon Tristram found it nesting in colonies ! 

 But this amicability seems to have been an enforced one, due to the 

 limited area of possible building sites. 



Though Mr. Macpherson was not the first to attempt the study 

 of the domestic economy of the golden-eagle, his essay is by far the 

 most complete. But five years earlier than this Mr. E. S. Cameron, 1 

 a resident in Montana, set himself a similar task. The eyrie in this 

 case was placed on a shelf of granite rocks on the north side of the 

 Yellowstone, on the Northern Pacific Railroad, and, therefore, under 

 totally different climatic conditions. The young watched by Mr. 

 Macpherson were reared amid sleet and snow and rain, while those 

 on the American Continent had to face burning sun. In both cases the 

 young were shielded from extremes of weather by the parent bird, 

 which stood over their young with outspread wings to shield them in 

 the one case from torrents of rain, in the other from heat so great 

 as to cause even the adults severe suffering, as they stood open- 

 mouthed, panting, and with dripping beaks, while the young lay 

 almost prostrate. The male took no part in incubation, but bore his 

 full share in catering for the young, and shielding them from the sun. 



1 E. S. Cameron, "Nesting of the Golden-Eagle in Montana," A^lk, xxii., 1905, p. 158. 

 VOL. IV. M 



