GOLDEN EAGLE 83 



twelve or fourteen inches; this protects eggs and young from disasters 

 due to high water. Only one egg is laid in the nest, and the young 

 is born covered with dowai like a young duck and is fed by the mother 

 on predigested food. The briUiant plumage of the adult is not acquired 

 until the fifth or sixth moult. (Reproduced from studies in the Bahama 

 Islands.) 



In this group is shown a portion of a coral islet on which 



00 y an three thousand boobies and four hundred man-of-war birds 



Bird Group were nesting, the former on the ground, the latter in the sea 



grape bushes. (Reproduced from studies in the Bahama 



Islands.) 



The abundance of bird-life in one of these rookeries is quite astound- 

 ing. In this group are roseate spoonbills, snowy egrets, 

 °" ^ American egrets, little blue herons, Louisiana herons, 



Group ibises, cormorants, and water turkeys. Because of the 



great inaccessibility of this island it has been one of the 

 last places to escape the depredations of the plume-hunter. (Repro- 

 duced from studies in the Everglades of Florida.) 



The golden eagle is one of the most ^videly distributed of birds. In 



North America it is now most common in the region from the Rockies to 



the Pacific Coast, although it is found as far east as Maine. 



o en ag e glories to the contrary notwithstanding, the eagle never 



attacks man, even though the nest is approached. 



Its food consists of rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, and occasionally 



sheep. (Reproduced from studies near Bates Hole, Wyoming.) 



The abundance of bird life in this western lake beneath Mt. Shasta, 

 which is seen in the center of the background, is astonishing. 



These two groups have recently been added, though 

 Whistling Swan provision was made for them in the original plans for this 



^ . gallery. The whooping crane was exterminated so rapidlv 



Whooping , , . . ., , , . , 



Qj.^jjg that not only was it mipossible to obtam a nest and young, 



but it was necessary to use old birds taken many years ago. 



Here is an example of how the normal nesting habits of a bird may 



be changed by its being driven into a different locality. In 



ama a e ^^^^ group are white pelicans which usually make a nest 



of pebbles, Caspian terns which commonly build their nests 



on sand, and cormorants that nest on rocks, all nesting together here 



on the tule or rush islets of the lake. (Reproduced from studies at 



Klamath Lake, Oregon.) 



The scene represented in this group is above timber line 



T.-'^j'r-ir ^^^^ on the crest of the Canadian Rockies, 8,000 feet above 



Bird Life ... 



QjQ^p the sea. Although these mountams are m the temperate 



region, the altitude gives climatic conditions that would 



