The Southern Bald Eagle 



Range of Halieeetus leucocephalus. — North America, chiefly in the vicinity of 

 streams and considerable bodies of water from near the limit of trees south to Florida 

 and Mexico. 



Range of //. /. leucocephalus. — United States south to southern Lower California 

 and northern Mexico; breeding throughout its range. Rare or local in arid interior 

 and on coast of California. 



Distribution in California. — Fairly common resident on the Santa Barbara 

 Islands, and frequent visitor to the adjacent mainland coast. Of occasional occurrence 

 in the northern interior. Has bred at Eagle Lake, at Sacramento, in Santa Clara 

 County, and at Elsinore Lake (Riverside County). 



Authorities. — Gambel (Haliaetus leucocephalus), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 iii., 1846, p. 45 (Santa Catalina, etc.); Oberholser, U. S. Dept. Agric, Biol. Surv. Bull., 

 no. 27, 1906, p. 6 (economic; habits, distr., food, etc.); Miller, Univ. Calif. Publ. Geol., 

 vol. vi., 191 1, p. 310 (fossil); Howell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 12, 1917, p. 55. 



THE PASSING of the Bald Eagle is doubtless ordained by the same 

 factors — bravado, recklessness and revenge — which have decreed the 

 destruction of his Golden kinsman. The human animal simply cannot 

 abide the presence of any bird larger than a pewee; and if the natural 

 instinct to burn up gunpowder lags, it is possible to unearth or invent a 

 hundred tales of evil-doing on the bird's part, each quite sufficient to 

 bolster up murderous purpose. In spite, therefore, of decades of educa- 

 tion, in spite of beautiful statutes, the tradition still persists that every 

 Eagle ought to be shot at sight. And slaughtered it probably will be, 

 until the seashore is destitute as the desert, and the isles of romance as 

 devoid of avian interest as the pages of a commercial ledger. 



We will grant without debate that the Bald Eagle is a bad actor. He 

 eats fish — a most reprehensible practice — and he occasionally captures 

 game birds, which we would prefer to do to death by our own peculiar 

 artistry. Worse than that, he sometimes — not often, mind you — attacks 

 lambs, and has been known to kill fawns. He has assisted sick sheep in 

 their effort to shuffle off the mortal coil; and, worst of all, he has been 

 known to carry off babies — say in two or three really authenticated 

 instances in our entire national history. We will not even plead that dead 

 and dying fish have been consumed by thousands of tons to the great 

 benefit of the national health; that birds and mammals of neutral impor- 

 tance are captured as often as those of economic benefit, or that distin- 

 guished services have been performed by the Eagles in freeing the land 

 from weasels, marmots, squirrels, and other injurious species of mammals. 

 It is idle. If the venerable dignity of the white-headed Eagle posted on a 

 sea-cliff excites only the itching of trigger fingers; if the prowess displayed 

 by the Eagle in pursuing and capturing swiftest-winged birds excites only 

 a malignant envy; if, indeed, the murderer of an Eagle is to be proclaimed 

 a hero, and allowed to bask in the sunshine of local approval ; the case is 



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