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manner when necessary, but it usually picks them up dead from the shore 
or, where Ospreys are common, takes the fish from them by force. To do 
this it pursues and badgers the successful fisher until it drops the prize, 
which by a lightning-like swoop is caught in the air and carried away in 
triumph. The Bald Eagle is, as a rule, hardly energetic enough to capture 
the quicker birds, but wounded or hurt Ducks or game are eagerly picked 
up from the marshes. When opportunity offers the Bald Eagle eats offal 
without compunction. 
Figure 226 
Bald Eagle (adult); scale, 
Appearance in flight. 
Figure 227 
Bald Eagle (juvenile); scale, X V 
Appearance in flight - 
On the seacoasts, where unusual numbers of Eagles occur, and different 
conditions prevail, certain reservations to these conclusions have to be 
made. The principal food of the Bald Eagle is undoubtedly fish when 
available, and most of it is waste and offal, but when the salmon are crossing 
the bars into the mouths of rivers, or making their way up the riffles to 
spawn, the Eagles attack them energetically. It is not only the fish that 
are actually killed and eaten that cause uneasiness, but the more numerous 
ones that tear themselves away from the great talons and die without 
having accomplished the propagation of their species. These are at times 
