IN THE CATSKILLS 



alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch 

 could be seen to sway and bend beneath him. 

 Finally, as a rifleman started out in pursuit of him, 

 he launched into the air, set his wings, and sailed 

 away southward. A few years afterward, in Jan- 

 uary, another eagle passed through the same local- 

 ity, alighting in a field near some dead animal, but 

 tarried briefly. 



So much by way of identification. The golden 

 eagle is common to the northern parts of both hemi- 

 spheres, and places its eyrie on high precipitous 

 rocks. A pair built on an inaccessible shelf of rock 

 along the Hudson for eight successive years. A 

 squad of Revolutionary soldiers, also, as related by 

 Audubon, found a nest along this river, and had an 

 adventure with the bird that came near costing one 

 of their number his life. His comrades let him 

 down by a rope to secure the eggs or young, when 

 he was attacked by the female eagle with such fury 

 that he was obliged to defend himself with his 

 knife. In doing so, by a misstroke, he nearly sev- 

 ered the rope that held him, and was drawn up by 

 a single strand from his perilous position. 



The bald eagle, also, builds on high rocks, ac- 

 cording to Audubon, though Wilson describes the 

 nest of one which he saw near Great Egg Harbor, in 

 the top of a large yellow pine. It was a vast pile of 

 sticks, sods, sedge, grass, reeds, etc., five or six feet 

 high by four broad, and with little or no concavity. 

 150 



