The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-08
FISHING OF THE BIRDS.
Some of Them Exceedingly Expert
 Fish Eagle Only 5unsler.

From the New York Sun
 It is easy for a man abroad with rod and line on some still tree-fringed lake to understand how the loon. the he'll diver, the kingfsher and such birds make a living. They are all expert an- glers with their own peculiar outfits and understand how to use them to perfection.
 The hell-diver does not pretend to tackle anything but very small fishes. minnows mostly, and it eats good many things that it finds in the mud.
 The loon is a powerful and fast swim mer and one of the greatest of all great divers. It thinks nothing of going to the bottom of a lake fifty feet deep, and when 1t gets after a small bass or perch or croppie that particular fish is in for a very unpleasant three minutes. The loon catches and eats fish all day, being almost an unfailing pursuer and one of the most destructive of all birds which prey upon fish life.
 The kingfisher, small, active and blue, cannot swim a stroke, but is a diver to a depth of a foot and 1t makes up in ex- pertness what it lacks in amphibiousness. Perched upon a branch which overhangs the water, with its head turned to one side and it's eye cooked like a parrots, it sees everything which passes below and darts downward at frequent intervals.
 It is after surface fish, minnows, clubs, dace and such things seldom capturing anything more than three Inches long. The kingfisher is successful in about once In three times which is very good aver age for a non-water bird, and as 1t Is very industrious 1t gets plenty for itself and it's sitting mate and later for the young in the nest among the sedges by the lakes edge. A man who watches small gulls flying and diving over a lake will find that they do not average more than one kill to six dives and the king fisher has them clearly outclassed.
 No angler though, ever has understood how the great fish eagle gets along. This huge bird, with a wingspread of six feet and a big body, needs much food More over, except in late fall and winter, 1t has always a brood of squalling young that are unsuitable.
 Both the male and the female fish for the nest, but Is a mystery how they man. age to obtain enough for themselves let alone the youngsters. The fish eagle cannot swim; 1t cannot dive; it is slow of flight; it cannot pick up anything with its beak.
 The kingisher hits the water spear-bill downward like flash of blue and white light, but the fish eagle, ponderous, cum brous and deliberative, has to depend entirely upon it's talons. It flies slowly over the lake at a height of ten to twenty yards. Seeing fish near the surface 1t lowers itself above it, drops its legs down for six inches and brings it's long talons together in the effort to grasp.
 While it is doing this its great wings are pounding the air to keep 1t aloft. No- body knows what would happen if it fell in. A more awkward take-a-chance-any- how fisherman does not exist.
 It would seem that any fish with an atom of sense would get out of the way, since unquestionably plenty of time is afforded. A bass idling on the surface and seeing the great shadow descending would easily shoot twenty yards before the terrible talons were let down.
 In fact, the man who has seen fish, eagle catch a fish is rare, though every angler has seen it try lots of times. The eagle after one of these attempts gets aloft awkwardly for a hundred feet or so then takes a perch on some dead tree overlooking the water and apparently thinks about it for awhile, resolving to do better Then it takes wings and goes through its opera bouffe chase once more.
 Eagles do not catch fish, for now and then about sunset one Is seen wingnig its way toward the nest with handsome bass or pike in its claws, but the prey must have been aslep when taken. The fish eagle is a good deal of a scavenger, and probably much of it's substance is gained in cleaning up dead fish.
 Lots of them are killed and not eaten by other fish. Often a muskallonge or big bass will hit a smaller swimmer and kill it when it's own maw is gorged, and the dead thing floats away. The fish eagle takes 1t in almost any stage of de- composition.
 The most frequent victims of ravenous game fishes belong to the class of suck They are slow and ont into dean water often. and there they meet fate. If a man sees a big sucker floating belly upward, with gash in it, he may know that muskallonge. pike, pickerel or bass has been at work. If he looks for the body of the sucker the next day he will not find it. The fish eagle will have been along.