ear
costing one of their number his life. His comrades let him down by a
rope to secure the eggs or young, when he was attacked by the female
eagle with such fury that he was obliged to defend himself with his
knife. In doing so, by a misstroke, he nearly severed the rope that
held him, and was drawn up by a single strand from his perilous
position.

The bald eagle, also, builds on high rocks, according to Audubon,
though Wilson describes the nest of one which he saw near Great Egg
Harbor, in the top of a large yellow pine. It was a vast pile of
sticks, sods, sedge, grass, reeds, etc., five or six feet high by
four broad, and with little or no concavity. It had been used for
many years, and he was told that the eagles made it a sort of home
or lodging-place in all seasons.

The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more or less repair, for
several years. Many of our common birds do the same. The birds may
be divided, with respect to this and kindred points, into five
general classes. First, those that repair or appropriate the last
year's nest, as the wren, swallow, bluebird, great-crested
flycatcher, owls, eagles, fish hawk, and a few others. Secondly,
those that build anew each season, though frequently rearing more
than one brood in the same nest. Of these the phoebe-bird is a
well-known example. Thirdly, those that build a new nest for each
brood, which includes by far the greatest number of species.
Fourthly, a limited number that make no nest of their own, but
appropriate the abandoned nests of other birds. Finally, those who
use no nest at all, but deposit their eggs in the sand, which is the
case with a large number of aquatic fowls.

1866.

VI

THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS

On looking at the southern and more distant Catskills from the
Hudson River on the east, or on looking at them from the west from
some point of vantage in Delaware County, you see, amid the group of
mountains, one that looks like the back and shoulders of a gigantic
horse. The horse has got his head down grazing; the shoulders are
high, and the descent from them down his neck very steep; if he were
to lift up his head, one sees that it would be carried far above all
other peaks, and that the noble beast might gaze straight to his
peers in the Adirondacks or the White Mountains. But the lowered
head never comes up; some spell or enchantment keeps it down there
amid the mighty herd; and the high round shoulders and th