24 THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. 
with straw, leaves and grass. The eggs are often difficult to reach 
as the nest is from four to five feet in diameter and overhangs to 
such an extent that it is no easy matter for one who is clinging,to 
the tree-top to put his hand over the nest to reach the eggs. The 
only way left is to break away part of the nest; and this is so 
strongly built that the collector is nearly exhausted before he feels 
his hand touching the eggs. 
A set of two eggs collected in California March 20, 1888, are 
white in ground color, spotted and sprinkled all over with rusty 
brown, and under shell marking of lavender grey. Size 2.88x2.25 
and 2.90x2.20. _ 
Eagles are destructive but not cruel birds, for although they de- 
prive many birds and beasts of their lives, they effect this purpose 
with a single blow, sweeping down upon the doomed creature 
aud striking it so fiercely with the death-dealing talons that the 
victim is instantaneously killed with the shock. The Eagle never 
uses its beak for the purpese of killing its prey. Instances have 
been known when the Eagle has seized and attacked human be- 
ings. A few years ago one attacked a traveler on a lonely moun- 
tain road in Germany, but he seized the bird by the neck and 
strangled it, not before it had done considerable damage to his 
clothes, legs and arms. Prof. Wilson tells a touching story of a 
Golden Eagle descending and carrying off an infant, whose moth- 
er had laid it beside a haycock while she was working in the har- 
vest field close by. The eagle was traced to its eyrie in the prec- 
ipice, some distance off, and the poor mother, blind to all danger 
in her efforts to recover her babe, safely scaled the precipice, high 
up in which the nest was placed ; though no man, however skillful 
a cragsman, had ever dared attempt the ascent. Here the mother 
found her child alive and unhurt, and clasping it to her arms, she 
descended again 
a more perilous feat still; reached the ground 
in safety and then swooned away. 
The Golden Eagle is fond of fish. . One in Scotland was found 
drowned, attached to a large pike; it had pounced upon the fish 
and being unable to extricate itself was drawn under and drowned. 
The Eagle is long-lived like the Raven; one lived in captivity 
at Vienna.to over one hundred vears old. This species is mono- 
gamous, keeping themselves to a single mate, living together in 
perfect harmony through their lives. Should, however, one get 
