8 THE CONDOR I VoL. VIII bringing the nest as close as we cared to photograph it, covering the full size of a 5x7 plate and giving a clehr definition of the eggs and the lining of the nest. The golden eagles are undoubtedly mated for life. The same aerie was used year after year. During the month of February the nest xvas re-carpeted 'with small twigs and dry leaves, for the eaglets of the preceding summer had worn it down to a rough platform of large sticks. A hollow of this soft material was made in the middle for the eggs, and a branch of green laurel was added. Later on when I removed this branch of evergreen it was replaced by another piece ap- parently wrenched from the living tree by the eagle. When this second piece had dried, still another branch of greeu was brought. This badge of green see]ns to be as essential in the eagles' home as the sacred Lares at the Roman fireside. The question is often asked as to whether the old eagles showed fight while we were about the nest. The moment you speak of climbing to an eagle's aerie the average person gets an idea of a harrowing picture of the photographer hang- AWAKENING INSTINCT: THE EAGLETS 25 DAYS OLD Cop),ri.?hted ing to the edge of a cliff, or the top of a tree, with the old eagles clawing out pound chunks at every swoop! Few eagles possess the mad ferocity pictured and magnified by sensational story writers. It would be interesting to know of au authentic case where the golden eagle shoa'ed fight at its nest. Wheu we first scrambled over the bowlders of the canyon up toward the nest, I saxv the old eagle slip quietly from her eggs and skim out over the mountain top. Each time we visited the spot the parents disappeared and stayed away as long as we cared to hold possession. On April ?, eighteen days after we secured the picture of the eggs, we made our second trip to the aerie. 'rhe mother, instead of leaviug her young when we were half a mile down the canyon, as she did when the nest contained eggs, crouched fiat down, while we climbed the mountain side above the tree and looked at her through the field-glass. But she slid off and sailed away soon after, when
