EA GLES. 281 



are likewise robbed whenever they are found in accessible places; the eggs, from their 

 rarity in collections, always bringing a good price. Hence the Lainmergeyer is fast 

 disappearing from Europe, being now very rarely seen in Switzerland, where it was 

 once common, though still found in some numbers in Spain, where it has been less 

 persecuted. 



A second species of Gypaetus, G. meridional! s, is credited to northeastern Africa, 

 and is said to be easily distinguished by having the lower part of the tarsus bare. It 

 also differs somewhat in head markings, but all the differences are so slight, and the 

 characters themselves so variable in the true Lammergeyer, that probably it will prove 

 to be merely a geographical race of this bird. 



We give the following anecdote of this species on the authority of Rev. ,1. G. 

 Wood, who says: "Bruce gives a graphic and amusing narrative of the cool audacity 

 that was displayed by one of these birds. The author, with a number of his attend- 

 ants, were seated on the summit of a mountain, engaged in cooking their dinner, 

 when a Lammergeyer came slowly sailing over the ground, and boldly alighted 

 close to the dish of boiled meat around which the men were sitting. Undismayed 

 by their shouts of distress, he quietly proceeded to reconnoitre the spot, while the 

 men were running for their spears and shields, and, going up to the pot in which 

 some goat's flesh was boiling, he inserted his foot for the purpose of abstracting 

 the meat. Not being prepared for the sudden scalding which ensued, he hastily 

 withdrew his foot and fastened on a leg and shoulder of goat's flesh which were 

 lying on the dish, carrying them away before he could be intercepted. The attend- 

 ants were quite afraid of the bird, and assured Mr. Bruce that it would return in 

 a short time for more meat. Accordingly, in a very few minutes, back came the 

 Lammergeyer, but was evidently rather suspicious at the look of Mr. Bruce, who 

 had taken up his rifle and was sitting close to the pan of meat. In spite of the shouts 

 of the attendants, the bird, which evidently held in the greatest contempt the warlike 

 capabilities of the natives, and was not prepared for European weapons and hands, 

 settled on the ground about ten yards from the meat, and the next instant was lying 

 dead on the earth with a rifle-ball through its body. When brought to the scales the 

 dead bird was found to weigh twenty-two pounds, and the expanse of its wings was 

 eight feet four inches, although it was undergoing its moult at the time." 



Most of the typical eagles are included under the genera Aquila and Haliaetus, each 

 of which comprises from five to twenty species distributed through all countries, but 

 perhaps most poorly represented in North America, where we have only one species 

 of each genus, viz., the golden-eagle, Aquila chrysaetus, common to Europe, Asia, 

 and North America, and the bald-headed eagle, Haliaetus leucocephalus, peculiar to 

 North America. The Old World white-tailed sea-eagle, H. albicilla, which very 

 closely resembles a large and poorly colored bald-eagle, is found in Greenland, but not 

 elsewhere in North America, though abundant in Europe and Asia and even in Kams- 

 chatka and the Aleutian Islands. 



In Aquila the tarsus is feathered to the toes; in Haliaetus only about half way 

 from heel to toes. The members of the genus A quila are often spoken of as 'true 

 eagles' as distinguished from the equally large but less regal Haliaeti, which are 

 certainly more addicted to fishing, and perhaps oftener feed on carrion, but in this 

 latter particular there is little choice. Other writers call both these genera ' true ' 

 eagles, relegating to the 'so-called eagles' the related genera Haliastur, Helotarsus, 



Zj i ^ ^3 O 



Nisaetus, and almost any hawk or buzzard of large size. 



