THE BALD EAGLE. 279 



speak in rather uncomplimentary terms of our national bird, stigmatizing it 

 as a robber and tyrant, and as feeding principally on fish, stolen from the 

 Osprey, and on carrion. This is not strictly true. According to my obser- 

 vations the Bald Eagle lives to a great extent at least on prey captured by 

 its own exertions, principally on wounded waterfowl. When engaged in 

 the chase of a flock of Greese, Brant, Ducks, or other water birds, on which 

 it subsists almost entirely when such are procurable, it is by no means the 

 sluggish, lazy bird some writers would have us believe, but the peer in 

 swiftness, dash, and grace of any of our Raptores. 



While it undoubtedly has occasionally to resort to an exclusive fish 

 diet, some of which is captured from the Osprey, this habit is by no means 

 universal, and carrion, in my opinion, is only used when other kinds of food 

 are not available. 



On May 1, 1886, Mr. S. B. Ladd found a nest of the Bald Eagle con- 

 taining young in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The ground directly 

 under it was covered with numbers of land terrapins, in various stages of 

 decay. These reptiles had evidently been carried to the young eaglets to 

 feed on, were found unmanageable, and pushed out of the nest ; probably 

 but little other food was to be procured at the time. 



Sometimes also when apparently fishing the Bald Eagle is after a dif- 

 ferent sort of game, as the following incident will show. Mr. W. W. Worth- 

 ington writes me from Darien, Gfeorgia: "The other day I noticed a Bald 

 Eagle hovering over the sound, much the same as the Fish Hawk does 

 when about to strike a fish. Suddenly he plunged down and grappled with 

 what I supposed to be a large fish, but was unable to raise it from the 

 water, and after struggling awhile he lay with wings extended and appar- 

 ently exhausted. After resting a minute or two he again raised himself out 

 of the water and I saw he had some large black object in the grasp of one 

 of his talons, which he succeeded in towing along the top of the water 

 toward the shore, a short distance, and then letting go his hold. He was 

 then joined by two other Eagles, and by taking turn they soon succeeded 

 in getting it to the shore. Investigation proved it to be a large Florida 

 Cormorant, on which they were about to regale themselves." 



Nidification begins early. In Florida and other parts of the Grulf coast 

 eggs are sometimes deposited in the early part of November, but generally 

 from the 1st to the 15th of December. In the Middle States they nest 

 occasionally in the beginning of February, Mr. Thomas H. Jackson taking 

 a full set of eggs in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on February 1 1 . 

 Usually they do not commence to lay till March, and correspondingly later 

 as they advance northward. 



On the Pacific coast in California, they nest about the middle of Feb- 

 ruary ; in Oregon and Washington, about April 1 ; in Alaska about the 

 middle of the month, and in the interior, in the Arctic regions, as late as 

 the latter part of May, and occasionally even in June. 



