204 



of these predaceous birds. 1 have repeatedly seen in 

 newspapers, accounts of combats between men and 

 eagles; frequently the bird would be the aggressor. 

 While it is admitted that these reports are largely 

 due to the imaginative reporter, it is believed that such 

 occurrences do occasionally take place. Veritable in- 

 stances are related of their carrying off infants. Ac- 

 cording to Wilson: 



"An attempt of this kind was made upon a child lying by its 

 mother, as she was weeding a garden, at Egg Harbor, New 

 Jersey, but the garment seized upon by the eagle giving way at 

 the instant of the attempt, the child's life was spared." Nut- 

 tall speaks of an instance said to have happened at Peters- 

 burg, Georgia, near the Savannah river, "where an infant, 

 sleeping in the shade near the house, was seized and carried 

 off to the eyry, near the edge of the swamp, five miles dis- 

 tant, and when found, almost immediately, the child was 

 dead." 



DESTROYS POULTRY AND GAME. 



This bird very often preys on birds and mammals. 

 I have knowledge of at least two of these birds which 

 have killed poultry (tame ducks and turkeys) along the 

 Susquehanna river. Duck hunters assured ine thai 

 they have, on several occasions, seen Bald Eagles at- 

 tack and kill wild ducks and geese which are often 

 quite numerous during migrations on the Sus(iuehanna 

 river. 



Sometimes, like the Go-lden Eagle, this species will 

 attack raccoons, and skunks; and o-n one occasion I 

 found two or three spines of a porcupine in the body 

 of an immature Bald Eagle which I secured in Clinton 

 county. This led me to infer that the Bald Eagle 

 might, sometimes, attack this animal which is so well 

 able to defend himself, and which seems to be of no use 

 in our hemlock forests but to ruin hunting dogs, and 

 gnaw everything which is the least bit salty, that they 

 find in (lieii noctural I'amblings nbout the lumber 

 cjinips. 



