The Bald Eagle 
327 
j Osprey in despair drops its fish. Instantly the eagle darts downward with 
!j half-closed wings at an enormous speed, and catches the fish in mid-air 
I before the tree-tops are reached. 
I In mountainous regions or along rocky sea-coasts Bald Eagles some- 
I times build their nests on cliffs, but their eyries are usually found in 
! tall trees. The first nest to which I ever climbed, 
i many years ago, was in a southern forest near a * 
lake-shore. The tree was a large one, and the only 
possible way to make the ascent was by nailing cleats of wood to the 
tree as I progressed, keeping myself safe in the meantime by a rope 
passing around the trees and over one shoulder and under the other 
arm. The strips of wood were pulled up by a cord from the ground as 
needed. By actual measurement, the first limb on this giant pine was 8i 
feet from the ground, and the edge of the nest was 13 1 feet in the air. 
It is one thing to climb to a Bald Eagle’s nest, and quite another to 
look into it when you get there. Above my head was a great accumula- 
tion of fragments of limbs and twigs, which made a mass fully five feet 
across and nearly as high. This great structure was supported by three 
limbs which represented the main fork of the tree. It was only by tear- 
ing away several armfuls of this material, which, however, in no way 
damaged the usefulness of the nest, that I was able to climb one of the 
limbs to a position where I could see into the eyrie. This nest was almost 
flat, with a shallow, basin-like depression in the center, where lay two 
eaglets covered with a whitish down. They offered no resistance to my 
handling, and the only complaint uttered was a low, whistling cry. 
The ascent of this tree was made on the twentieth of January, and, 
as eagles sit on their eggs for about a month, the presence of the eaglets 
showed that the eggs must have been laid some time in December. 
The next year I again climbed this huge forest-monarch, and, as be- 
fore, the old eagles circled around at a sufficient distance to render them 
safe from gun-fire had I entertained any designs on 
their lives. This second visit was on January 14, The Eaglets 
and this time I found the nest contained young birds, 
the expanse of whose wings measured three and a half feet from tip to 
tip. The eggs from which they came must have been laid before Thanks- 
giving Day. This was in Florida, in many parts of which Bald Eagles are 
abundant. Farther north, the eggs are deposited later in the year, and in 
Alaska they are not laid until April. 
Usually the nests are placed well back in swamps, or along unfre- 
quented stretches of lake-shore or coast-line. They are ordinarily near 
water; in fact, all of the twenty or more nests that I have found were 
so situated that, while brooding the eggs, the old eagles could look out 
over some body of water. 
If the birds are not killed, the same eyrie is often occupied for a great 
many years in succession, and is repaired each season by the addition of a 
new layer of sticks, twigs, pine-needles, and sometimes of moss. This 
additional material varies from two to four inches in thickness, and, as the 
