174 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
In some places it lives almost entirely on the dead fish it finds along 
the shores. The golden eagle is more of a hunter. It has seldom 
been known to touch dead animals. 
In the coast mountains of California, we found an aerie of a 
golden eagle that could be photographed. To the branch of a tall 
sycamore, bending out toward the valley, the eagles had carried a 
cartload of sticks and made a platform five feet across. 
We made a close study of the castle in the sycamore. These 
eagles were successful hunters. We never saw the time when their 
larder was empty. The food of the young eagles consisted almost 
entirely of ground squirrels. The first visit I made to the aerie after 
the eaglets were hatched, I found the bodies of four ground squirreis 
lying on the rim of the nest. For miles along the lower hills, the 
ground was perforated with the burrows of these rodents. On rocky 
lookouts above, the eagles had their regular watch towers where they 
kept vigil. 
The golden eagle cradled her eggs in the big sycamore the first 
week in March. The period of incubation lasted a month, for the eggs 
hatched on April 3. At first the eaglets were covered with soft, white 
down, rather poor garments for a hunter, but this coat lasted a full 
month. During this time the youngsters grew from the egg till they 
weighed as much as a good-sized hen. Then black pin-feathers began 
to prick up through the down, first appearing on the wings and back. 
It was not till the first week in June that the eaglets were fairly well 
clothed. The wings and feet were still very weak. The wing feathers 
were slow in gaining the strength that was necessary to handle such 
heavy bodies. It required the continued efforts of both parents to 
hunt food for such ravenous children. It took many days of prac- 
ticing on the nest edge by flapping their wings, and much parental 
persuasion, before the young eagles sailed out from the castle in the 
sycamore. 
FISHING WITHIN THE LAW 
By “Syu’’ in The American Angler 
the woods for their associations, but he is only entitled to that 
distinction when he becomes so devoted to his avocation that he 
lives within the letter of the law and becomes a conservator of the 
life about him. The man who loves the sound of a purling brook 
and the click of a reel is a sportsman, but is only entitled to that 
distinction when he gives his victim a chance for an even fight, 
respects the prescribed laws of the state and the more natural laws 
of supply and demand. 
Any man, whether he be a devotee of rod or gun or rifle, who 
takes more game, fin or feathered, than he can use or than the law 
allows, or who does not give that game a chance for an even break 
for life, who violates the laws of supply and demand, who cannot 
control a bloodthirsty desire to slaughter, who kills more game than 
he can use for the simple sake of killing, just because there is the 
chance to kill, is most contemptible. 
It is the duty of every man who finds pleasure afield or astream 
to abide by the laws of the commonwealth, not because of fear of the 
law, but because of his respect for them and the principles of con- 
servation which they represent. 
It is the duty of every man who pays his fee to the state to do 
. MAN is a sportsman when he loves the smell of a camp fire and 
