BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 197 
the abundant use of smaller ones interlocked, and further 
secured by coarse fresh twigs, over which almost any availa- 
ble material like hay, moss, leaves, and what-not, are deposited, 
and more and more from year to year as its reoccupation is con- 
tinued. They lay two dirty yellowish-white eggs, and when the 
young are hatched, no sprigs in the bird kingdom are more 
royally cared for until fairly able to take care of themselves. 
In selecting their location for their nests in the ordinary 
forest they almost uniformly choose a tree on a kind of obso- 
lete island, so surrounded with morass that approach to it on 
the ground is difficult or impossible, but where large islands 
covered with large trees are found in considerable lakes, they 
will prefer these. I have never found more than one brood 
raised in one nest ina season. Their feeding habits are too 
well known to call for any special mention. 
Almost from the earliest observations of white men, and 
from long before according to Indian tradition, they have 
reared their young on the islands in Lake Minnetonka until 
very recently. Fifteen years of personal observation in the 
forest west of that lake have afforded me opportunity to locate 
several nests, from which I have had the young eaglets | 
brought to me to ‘‘raise for pets” again and again. A well 
earned and enduring respect for raptorial birds in general has 
enabled me to decline all such proffers, but others have ac- 
cepted them, so that for many years after I became a citizen of 
Minneapolis it was no unusual thing to see individuals of the 
species chained, like a monkey, to a box or outhouse in different 
places in the city. . 
Mille Lacs, Otter Tail, Big lake, and many others, have had 
the credit of being alike favorite breeding places of the Bald- 
headed Eagle. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Large; bill large, strong, straight at base, rather abruptly 
hooked; wings long; tarsi short; head, tail and upper coverts 
white; entire other plumage brownish-black, generally with 
‘the edges of the feathers paler; bill, feet and iris yellow. 
Length (female), 35 to 40; wing, 28 to 25; tail 14 to 15. 
Habitat, temperate North America. 
