140 TIIK CONDOR Voi<. X 



By wearing a head net inside of a bed net and then closing the tent up tight we 

 manage to sleep without being caressed by the "skeeters." It is almost impossi- 

 ble to work outside of mosquito nets even inside of the tightest tent. Burning 

 buhack usually drives them out; but almost all of our endeavors to evade them have 

 been futile. The sandflies are so small that the net will not stop them and their 

 bite feels like some one running a hot needle in one's arm. Any account of these 

 small insects may seem trivial but they certainly have made us feel their impor- 

 tance. It is humiliating to be driven out of the woods by such small creatures 

 when hunting for bear; but it would not be much worse to be eaten all at once than 

 to be devoured daily by these gauzy-winged "hellets". Then too their bites are 

 always itching and I will scratch them in my sleep. These make ideal material for 

 arsenic sores. Enough for our pains, so let us look to some of our pleasures. 



While we were working at Canoe Passage on Hawkins Island, Miss Alexander 

 found a Northern Bald Eagle's nest and thought from the actions of the parents 

 that the nest must contain young. The nest was an immense affair; eight by ten 

 feet in diameter, measured with a steel tape that had no rubber in it! It was 

 placed in a large hump-backed hemlock tree that stood near the point of a low sand 

 spit. There were but very few limbs on the rough moss-covered tree trunk which 

 was too big to "hug" up, so we went down a couple of days later with cameras, 

 ropes and an ax. As we approached the nest one of the old white heads came sail- 

 ing over from his watch tower on an old dead hemlock. When he came to a spot 

 above the nest he hovered up against the wind for a minute while he uttered a few 

 anxious chuckle-like notes. Both birds seemed quite threatening but it was only 

 a bluff as they cleared out entirely when I began climbing the tree. We managed 

 to get a rope over the first limb and after I had tied it around me, Mr. Hasselborg 

 began to hoist away so that together with his pulling and my scratching I man- 

 aged to reach the first limb. Then after I had thrown the rope over the next limb 

 the pulling and scratching began again and continued until I had reached the nest 

 where I was surprised to find three instead of two young fuzzy eaglets as I had ex- 

 pected. They could not have been more than two weeks old as the largest of the 

 three did not weigh more than a pound. The smallest one was not much more 

 than half the size of the largest one. They seemed to not be at all afraid of me 

 and surveyed me with curiosity only. Then they snuggled up in the moss that 

 lined the nest and went to sleep. The nest was evidently an old one as a large 

 currant bush twined its green branches over one side of the nest. It must support 

 at least a ton of snow during the winter so I got out and walked around in it after 

 taking some photos of the eaglets. I hope to be able to raise them and get a life 

 hi.story series of photographs. 



Grouse seemed to be quite common about the high wooded knolls near the 

 beach. They are very different from the grouse that we got last year. They are 

 much smaller and darker. Mr. Heller thought that it was the Franklin Grouse 

 but I do not think that it is. None of them have more than sixteen tail feathers; 

 so I suppose that they belong to the genus Canachites and are probably the Alaska 

 Spruce Grouse but as we have no description of this form, I cannot be sure. The 

 comb is not orange colored, but almost a cardinal hue. The upper tail coverts are 

 not strikingly barred but have the same appearance as the rest of the upper parts. 

 They stay in the dark woods and scarcely ever flush unless we almost tramp upon 

 them . 



The country about Canoe Passage on Hawkins Island was low and rolling with 

 large open parks bordered by wooded creeks. There were a number of lagoons 

 almost shut off from the Bay by long grassy gravel bars. One mountain in the in- 



