250 Life and Immortality. 
deposited on consecutive or alternate days, at the rate of one 
eggaday. 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 ina 
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 
