250 Life and Immortality. 



deposited on consecutive or alternate days, at the rate of one 

 egg a day. They measure about two and one-half inches in 

 length and one and three-fourths in width/ and are of a yel- 

 lowish-white color, thickly covered with large blotches of 

 different shades of brown. Incubation follows close upon 

 the last deposit, the task being begun by the female, and 

 devolving principally upon her, although the male occasion- 

 ally relieves her for a brief spell each day. While she is on 

 the nest, he is a jealous husband and a most faithful provider. 

 The choicest catch of his piscatorial exploits is carried 

 directly to the nest and ungrudgingly administered to the 

 patient sitter. When not engaged in providing for their 

 wants he stations himself upon an adjoining tree, if such 

 should happen to be present, or somewhere in the immediate 

 neighborhood, and exercises the closest surveillance over the 

 nest and its occupant. All attempts at intrusion are most 

 summarily punished. Dr. Brewer mentions a case where a 

 lad essayed to reach the nest in order to rob it of its eggs, 

 when he was assailed with so much violence that the male's 

 talons were driven through a cloth cap that he wore and laid 

 bare the scalp. Experience has proved the risk incurred in 

 visiting these nests with hostile intentions. You may pass 

 and repass underneath the nest, the authors criticising your 

 every movement the while, without calling forth the slightest 

 opposition. When, however, you attempt to mount the 

 tree that contains their cherished treasures, you virtually 

 invite the full measure of their wrath. That the male is 

 affectionately devoted to his partner is shown by Wilson in a 

 case which he cites of a female who was prevented from fish- 

 ing by a broken leg and that was abundantly supplied with 

 food by her mate. 



When the young appear they are objects of more than 

 common parental solicitude, the parents vying with each 

 other in rendering them every needed attention and in pro- 

 viding them with a plentiful supply of suitable food. But 

 one parent is absent from the nest at a time, the other 



