THE HAEPY EAGLE. 271 



ingly correct. He says: "The Harpy Eagle (Harpia destructor) has been shot 

 in the mountains of southwestern Bolivia, in the Monies du Diable of San 

 Domingo, and in the valleys of southern California ; but a hunter may range 

 those regions for years without getting a chance to add to his trophies the 

 feather coronet of the Aquila real, the King Eagle, as the Spaniards call him, 

 while every farmer's boy of an Oaxaca Mountain village knows an eyrie or two 

 in the neighboring crags, which he is ready to rob of its eaglets or large white 

 eggs for a couple of reals. From the projecting rocks of the Lower Sierra on 

 any bright morning of the year one may see the hovering form of the 

 Destructor suspended in the clear sky or wheeling in ascending circles over 

 the misty ocean of foliage; and from March to the end of June the tree 

 tops of the Tierra caliente resound with the screams of the ever-hungry 

 eaglets. *■' * * 



"The Lobo volante, or Winged Wolf, as Quesada translates the old 

 Aztec name of the Harpy, attacks and kills heavy old Turkeycocks, young 

 fawns, sloths, full-grown foxes and badgers, middle-sized pigs, and even the 

 black Sapayou. monkey (Meles paniscus), whose size and weight exceed its 

 own more than three times. * * * 



"As soon as the lengthening days of the year approach the vernal 

 equinox the hen Harpy begins to collect dry sticks and moss, or perhaps 

 only lichens, with a few clawsful of the feathery bast of the Arauca palm, 

 if her last year's eyrie has been left undisturbed. Her favorite roosting 

 places are the highest forest trees, especially the Adansonia and the Pinus 

 balsamifera ; the more inaccessible rocks of the foothills are also com- 

 monly chosen for a breeding place, and it is not easy to distinguish her 

 compactly built eyrie on the highest branches of a wild fig tree from the 

 dark colored clusters of the Mexican mistletoe (Viscwm rubruni) which are 

 seen in the same tree tops. The eggs are white, with yellowish brown dots 

 and washes, and about as long though not quite as heavy as a hen's egg. 

 Of these eggs the Harpy lays four or five, but never hatches more than 

 two, and, if the Indians can be believed, feeds the first two eaglets that 

 make their appearance with the contents of the remaining eggs. 



"The process of incubation is generally finished by the middle of March, 

 if not sooner, and from that time to the end of June the rapacity of the old 

 birds is the terror of the tropical fauna, for their hunting expeditions, which 

 later in the year are restricted to the early morning hours, now occupy 

 them the larger part of the day." 



Judging from the size of several specimens of the Harpy Eagle in the 

 U. S. National Museum collection, the egg of this species should at least be 

 as large as that of our Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), and in fact consid- 

 erably larger. I have been unable to find a correct description of the egg 

 of this species. 



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