! 
Comment and Query. 
Brewer, Me., Sept. 2 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Under this heading C. H. Ames asks 
if anyone has seen the bald eagle catch fish. 
A few years ago I was driving along the shore 
of Marsh Bay, which is on the Penobscot a few 
miles below Winterport, and saw an eagle cir¬ 
cling over the water very near us. I stopped the 
carriage to watch him. He circled a few times 
until, when quite low down and facing the sun, 
he suddenly dropped or rather slanted down 
until close to the water, when he extended his 
right leg until it just cleared the water, and 
moving a few feet with it trailing thus he sud¬ 
denly darted his claw into the water and drew 
out a fish about a foot long. He was so near 
me that I could plainly see his foot and the 
fish. It was very evident that he did not dart 
upon the fish when he first saw it, but circled so 
as to cast his shadow behind him, and came 
down near to the water when some ways from 
the fish so as to be within striking distance when 
over him. It was one of the best pieces of still¬ 
hunting I ever saw done. 
As Mr. Ames writes, the bald eagles with us 
are usually seen in pairs, and four are the most 
I ever saw alight near each other, but my father 
once, when climbing to a nest upon Peakes’ 
Island in Portland Harbor, said that the boat’s 
crew, which was waiting for him, counted 
|, thirteen circling round him. This was over 
/eighty years ago and eagles were then more 
numerous on our coast, as rifles and strychnine 
have greatly reduced their numbers. 
J In a very interesting article in the Auk for 
July Mr. E. S. Cameron, writing on the “Golden 
Eagle in Montana,” is of the opinion that the 
golden eagle cannot rise with more than four 
to five pounds’ weight in his talons, although 
he quotes Mr. Oberholser as stating in his bulle- 
1 tin that the eagle “probably seldom if ever 
carries a weight of more than ten or twelve 
1 pounds.” 
Personally I have no acquaintance with the 
golden eagle, but an Ojibwa chief, whose word 
I found reliable on other things, told me of see¬ 
ing a golden eagle pick up an otter from the 
ice and carry it off. An average otter will weigh 
eighteen to twenty pounds. 
While I cannot give any positive proof of how 
! much a bald eagle can carry, I should suppose 
| that he could carry at least as much in propor¬ 
tion to his weight as a hawk or a horned owl. 
I have the recorded weight of a male bald eagle 
weighing nine and one-quarter pounds, and a 
female weighing twelve pounds. A horned owl 
will weigh from four to five pounds, and I have 
I several times known one to carry off a large 
house cat. One was a very large one and the 
owner told me he could hear the cat erv as he 
was being carried off. Now anyone who will 
! weigh a large house cat will find it to weigh at 
least ten pounds. I have seen a goshawk carry 
off a hen fully twice its own weight and I have 
taken from a marsh hawk a very large chicken 
which would weigh more than twice what the 
hawk would. The marsh hawk is one of our 
weakest hawks, but he had carried this chicken 
over a quarter of a mile. My belief is that if 
a hawk or horned owl can carry more than 
twice his weight (and I know positively that 
they can) that an eagle could, if occasion re¬ 
quired, do as much in proportion to his weight, 
which would be to carry eighteen to twenty 
pounds. 
Once when an eagle, shot through the body 
with a rifle ball, lay on his back I up-ended a 
long road skid and dropped it on him. Before 
it reached him he stretched up and caught it 
in his claws and held it up the length of his legs 
above him. I walked up on the skid and stood 
above him and he easily held me and the skid, 
which I should judge would weigh more than 
twenty pounds. I took pains to be weighed the 
same day and weighed 119 pounds. Put a stick 
in the claw of a wounded eagle and let him 
grasp a small tree with the other, and a man 
must be stronger than I ever was to take the 
stick from him. Manly Hardy. 
Las Animas, Colo., Sept. 3.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: With the exception of the arid 
eastern portion of our State, bird life shows a 
wonderful variety of change in different locali¬ 
ties. In the fall and winter a few of the moun¬ 
tain birds visit us, notably the jay and the mag¬ 
pie, but as a rule the different varieties confine 
themselves to certain altitudes. 
As more of our lands have been brought under 
cultivation by extending the irrigation systems, 
bird life has been attracted, and we now have 
many summer residents that a few years ago 
were in the habit of nesting further north; 
among these are the brown thrush, the robin 
and several finches. Many of our birds nest in 
the alfalfa fields, and as we cut this crop three 
times during the summer, nearly all of these 
nests are destroyed by the rake or mower. The 
greatest sufferers in this respect are the meadow 
larks and the quail. 
There is evidence that the quail have an in- 
colorado mountain quail's nest. 
In photographing it Mr. Webber tied the weeds back to expose the nest, then replaced them. 
