huge structure had been enlarged by {33} additions until now it was
nearly five feet in thickness and about four feet across the top.

[Illustration: The Bald Eagle's Eyrie]

[Illustration: Gannets nesting on the cliffs. Bonaventure Island, Gulf
of St. Lawrence.]

At this date it contained two fledglings perhaps three weeks old.
Having been led to believe that Eagles were ferocious birds when their
nests were approached, it was with feelings of relief that I noticed
the parents flying about at long rifle-range. The female, which, as is
usual with birds of prey, was the larger of the pair, once or twice
swept within twenty yards of my head, but quickly veered off and
resumed her former action of beating back and forth over the tree-tops
two hundred yards away.

_Nests in Holes._--The members of the Woodpecker family, contrary to
certain popular beliefs, do not lay their eggs in hollow trees but
deposit them in cavities that they excavate for the purpose. The bird
student will soon learn just where to look for the nest of each
species. Thus you may find the nesting cavity of the Red-headed
Woodpecker in a tall stump or dead tree; in some States it is a common
bird in towns, and often digs its cavity in a telephone {34} pole.
Some years ago a pair excavated a nest and reared their young in a
wooden ball on the staff of the dome of the State House in Raleigh,
North Carolina.

On the plains, where trees are few, the telegraph poles provide
convenient nesting sites for Woodpeckers of various species. While
travelling on a slow train through Texas I counted one hundred and
fifty telegraph poles in succession, thirty-nine of which contained
Woodpeckers' holes. Probably I did not see all of them, for not over
two-thirds of the surface of each pole was visible from the car window.
Not all of these holes, of course, were occupied by Woodpeckers in any
one season.

Flickers, or "Yellowhammers," use dead trees as a rule, but sometimes
make use of a living tree by digging the nest out of the dead wood
where a knot hole offers a convenient opening. The only place I have
ever known them regularly to nest in living trees is in the deserts of
Arizona, where the _saguaro_ or "tree cactus" is about the only tree
large enough to be employed for such a purpose. In the {35} Northern
States Flickers sometimes chisel holes through the weatherboarding of
ice-houses and make cavities for their eggs in the tightly packed
sawdust