26 NORTH AMERICAN EAGLES. 



the European hedgehog (Erinaceus europseus) is sometimes captured 

 by the golden eagle, and that this animal's spiny coat, so efficient a 

 protection against many of its enemies, is apparently little or none 

 against the eagle. 



) Various smaller mammals, particularly rodents, are at times eaten. 

 Mr. Vernon Bailey discovered bones of a pocket gopher (Cratogeomys 

 castanops) among those of other animals at an aery near Cuervo, 

 New Mexico, and these and similar gophers are doubtless elsewhere 

 taken. In Europe the native rats ( Mus) and in North America the 

 wood rats (Neotoma) are eaten by both adults and young. Mr. R. 

 MacFarlane records that in the region of the Anderson River in Arctic 

 America mice and lemmings form a part of the food, but such ignoble 

 quarry is probably a last resort. 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



The golden eagle seldom attacks full-grown domestic animals, but 

 often kills their young, particularly where easily accessible or when 

 other food is not readily obtainable. Lambs are apparently the most 

 frequent victims, and although the eagle probably seldom if ever 

 carries a weight of more than 10 or at most 12 pounds, and the lambs 

 taken are therefore of rather small size, the damage to flocks in many 

 localities, in both Europe and America, is considerable. According 

 to Mr. William Brewster, young lambs in the valleys of the mountain 

 region of western North Carolina are subject to the attacks of this 

 eagle, but the bird is not common enough there to do much damage. 

 In the West, however — in California as elsewhere — it is very trouble- 

 some on many of the sheep ranches, and is therefore cordially hated 

 by the sheep owners, who lose no opportunity for its destruction. 

 Mr. E. S. Cameron, writing for the vicinity of Fallon, Mont., states 

 that the eagles whose nest he watched carried off a number of lambs, 

 but ceased their depredations after one of their young was killed by a 

 shepherd. Mr. Cameron states also that some thirty years ago this 

 eagle was abundant on the western coast of Scotland and that each 

 pair during the breeding season taxed the sheep farmer one or two 

 lambs every day. So numerous and so destructive did the eagles 

 become that a war of extermination was waged against them by the 

 farmers and hundreds were killed. On the continent of Europe a 

 single sheep farm is said to have lost from raids of the golden eagle 

 alone as many as 35 lambs in a single season. 



Other domestic animals are not infrequently seized for food. 

 In some places in Europe and America kids and even goats are 

 attacked by this eagle. Calves, too, are sometimes killed, even in 

 well-settled regions, and Mr. Oliver Davie records that a golden eagle 

 captured near- Columbus, Ohio, had caused the farmers considerable 

 annoyance in this way. Mr. J. A. Loring in 1892 was informed by 



