Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1889-11-15
WHERE EAGLES ABOUND.
THE BIRD OF FREEDOM PLENTI-
Full IN INDIANA.
The Golden Eagle and the Bald Ea-
gIe-A Rendezvous for the Big
BIrds-Their Habits.

SAM Il don know that outside of Nermil-
lion County there is an Indiana ma
who knows much about eagles, and may
be VermiliOn County folks wouldn't be
so familiar with them If it wasn't tha-
Professor John Collett. the naturalist,
lives there, and he talks right out what
he knows. We have in Indiana not only
the bald but the golden eagle, and the
golden eagle doesn't hang around in
many other places nowadays either.
They are rare birds even in Indiana, but
there is a family of them on farm in
Vermillion County. Lots of people,
even in Indiana, think they have seen
golden eagles when they haven't. What
they thought was golden eagles was the
females of the coming twO-year-Old male
of the bald eagle family. The reason
bald eagle is called bald eagle is be-
cause of a white crest with which the
male is ornamented. But he don't get
that crest until he is past two years old.
The golden eagle looks very much like
the bald eagle without the crest. Con-
soquently, folks who amt up in eagles,
as Vermillion County people arc, think
they have had the pleasure of seeing
specimens of the rare golden eagle, when
all they've seen was either some old bald
eagles wife or his young son.
''There's a farm in NermiliOn County
where there is a regular bald eagle assem-
bly,, and 1t has been there as long as any
one can remember anything about that
part of the State. The eagles hold a con-
ventiOn there every night, and Professor
hot ho N1o hot
there come from different parts of the
State for fifty or hundred miles around.
They come in the dusk of the evening,
and seem to meet for some consultation
of Importance, rather than to have
social time. The big birds come soaring
in one at time, and every newcomer is
received with shouts of welcome by the
eagles that have preceded him to the
rendezvous. If you've ever heard an
eagle or two in cage give voice to their
national song, you can probably get
some idea of the grand and melodious
chorus that swells out upon the ambient
Vermilion County air about that babi
eagle assemblage of an evening. This
rendezvous is in a very solitary place,
where there are numerous high and bare
limbed sycamore trees. The eagles oc-
cupv those limbs. Professor Collett was
an interested but unseen witness to
gathering of these eagles one evening,
and he counted ffty-three.
owe have learned out in Vermilion
County that there has been a great deal
of poetic humbug written about the
eagle There isn't anything noble or in
spring about him. He is not only the
biggest of all feathered thieves, but he s
the cruele5t. His especial delight is 20
attack end torture the most innocent O.
birds and animals. He will capture =
lamb and tear out the eyes of the bleedinc:
little thing, and then release it and watch
and gloat over the agonized movements
of its victim. When the poor lamO
grows weak and cannot exhibit its agony
longer the eagle will catch another of the
flock and subject it to the same tOrtue.
''Eagles grow big in Vermilion County.
I killed one once that measured a tritc
over eleven feet from the tip of one wing
to the tip of the other. We don't bother
to hunt eagles for the purpose of killing
them, but, of course, if one comes in our
way we lay him low, if we can. We
depend on the jaybirds and crows, and
on their own careless nest building, to
keep them down to point beyond which
they might be destructive nuisances. l
don't mean that the jaybird or the crow
pitch in and destroy eagles by giving
them battle, but they make business of
scrambling every eagles egg they
run across, and they are generally nosing
around looking for eagles eggs, too. The
eagle builds his nest out of the reach OF
man on inaccessible rocky SUBMITS or in
the top of some dry and isolated tree.
Some people believe that eagles don't
build their nests in old dead trees, be-
cause they are old dead trees, but that
when the nests were first built there the
trees were alive and were killed by the
eagles nesting in them. No one in
Vermilion County believes thai,
because we know better. The eagle is
a bird that wants to see what is going on
all the time, and when a nest is built 1t
is put to a bare tree, because It offers
better opportunities for observation.
Eagles nests are built of coarse sticks,
carelessly thrown together. They do nos
furnish security to the eggs in case OF
storm, and the future of many eagle fam
lilies is destroyed by the eggs being tum-
bled out of their nests and broken on thc
ground or rocks. No one ever sees two
eagles together in flight, although close
observation in Vermilion County has es-
tablished the fact, according TO Professor
hot miles SQUARE ~