358 THKOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASm 



the sandy nature of the soil in their vicinity was jiot favour- 

 able for construction on cliffs. But in no case, however, 

 did any of our party find, or our collectors report having 

 seen, a large accumulation of bones or other food debris on 

 or in the neighbourhood of the nests. The full set of eggs 

 wag invariably two in number, never more, and yet Major 

 C. Bendire, in his aforesaid " Life Histories of ISTorth Amer- 

 ican Birds," states that James McDougall, Chief Factor 

 Hudson's Bay Company, took three eggs from a nest found 

 near Eort Yukon, Alaska, in the spring of 1868, and also 

 that a like number of eggs had been secured by Mr. William 

 Steinbeck, of HoUister, California, on March 21, 1891. In 

 confinement, even when taken young, they are rather fierce 

 and perhaps untamable, though they readily eat the food 

 given to them, whether it be fish or meat. One of four thus 

 reared at Eort Anderson a year or two later ferociously 

 killed two of her partners." They kept their plumage in a 

 very cleanly condition, and they always grasped their food in 

 the talons of either leg and tore it up with their beaks. After 

 feeding they at once set about removing any blood or other 

 impurities which might have adhered to the beak by scratch- 

 ing it with their talons or rubbing it against the bars of the 

 wooden cage. The eagles in question were thus kept in an 

 unheated room in a dwelling-house during the colder months 

 of the Arctic winter, but in April we had them removed to 

 a larger cage outside, where they frequently exercised them- 

 selves by jumping off and on their roosting poles, and they 

 also seemed much interested in all that they observed taking 

 place within the Fort square. In this connection it seems 

 remarkable that, in the case of the nests and young discovered 

 by us, the parent eagles never gave any trouble or made any 

 atteyipt to defend either. Mice, lemmings, and marmots 

 form no unimportant item in the diet of the golden eagle, 

 one of which was once observed by us hunting a Parry's 

 Bpermophile, or marmot, near Langton Harbour, Franklin 

 Bay. 



