622 



THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



instruments quickly dispatched it. The bird then proceeded to tear 

 the animal to pieces with the stout beak and, .perched on the ground, 

 devoured it on the spot. The strategy and success of this method of 

 attack was obviously dependent upon the eagle keeping close to the 

 ground so as to remain out of the squirrel's range of vision until the 

 last moment. 



At Pleasant Valley, Mariposa County, on May 17, 1915, C. L. Camp 

 (MS) fed a ground squirrel that had been shot, to a Golden Eagle kept 

 captive by a storekeeper there. The eagle ate head, skin and bones, 

 but discarded the stomach and large intestines. Other birds, such as 

 the turkey vulture, have been observed by the junior author to similarly 

 avoid the stomach and intestines of ground squirrels that have been 

 killed by taking poisoned barley. Coyotes have also been known to 

 show the same fine discrimination when eating ground squirrels which 

 they themselves have not caught. 



Some idea of the success with which Golden Eagles sometimes pursue 

 ground squirrels may be had from the fact that at Lilac, San Diego 

 County, on April 4, 1907, James B. Dixon (MS) found eleven freshly 

 caught ground squirrels in and about an eagle's nest that contained 

 two eaglets about a week old. 



During the spring of 1904 W. L. Pinley and H. T. Bohlman observed 

 and photographed a pair of young Golden Eagles in various stages of 

 development from the time the eaglets were nine days old until they 

 left their birthplace nearly three months later. The aerie was a bulky 

 affair placed in a horizontal fork of the upper limbs of a large sycamore 

 tree that grew in a canyon back of Mission San Jose, Alameda County. 

 In speaking of the food of the Golden Eagle, Finley (1906, pp. 9-10) 

 says: "His food consists almost entirely of the ground squirrels that 

 are so abundant through the California hills. On our second trip [on 

 April 12], when we looked into the nest, we found the remains of the 

 bodies of four squirrels lying on its rim. At each visit we examined 

 the food remains and the pellets about the nest, and we are sure that 

 a very large proportion of the eagles' food supply consisted of squirrels. 

 . . . I am satisfied that this family of eagles regularly consumed an 

 average of six ground squirrels a day during the period of nesting, 

 and, very likely, more than that. . . . But even this low estimate would 

 mean the destruction of 540 squirrels along the hillsides in about three 

 months' time." 



The nest of a Western Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo borealis calurus) 

 examined by J. B. Dixon (J. Dixon, 1917, p. 12) on March 28, 1906, 

 and containing one day-old chick, two pipped eggs and a rotten egg, 

 was found to contain also the remains of two ground squirrels. This 

 was near Vista, San Diego County. At Pala, in the same county, the 

 same observer found the nest of a Red-bellied Hawk (Buteo lineatus 

 elegans), April 3, 1916, containing three young, a week old, together 

 with one ground squirrel and two pocket gophers. The dead squirrels 

 counted in the nests represent, of course, merely the surplus which the 

 old birds had just carried to the young. The squirrels that the old 

 birds themselves or the young may have eaten on the day of observation 

 are not taken into account. 



At Dunlap, Fresno County, on September 30, 1916, H. S. Swarth 

 (MS) found a large rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus) which showed a 



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