286 Mr Selby on the Quadrupeds and Birds 



a)mmences with the tenth figure. I calculated, in like manner, 

 tlie h3^perbolical logarithm of 10, after Napier's corrected num- 

 bers; I found for its value 2.3025850940346, whereas by the 

 tables in use it is 2.30258 50929 940 ; the actual diflPerence, 

 then, only falls upon the ninth decimal, and that is two places 

 beyond Callet's tables in present and daily use. If Napier could 

 have commanded the services of a country schoolmaster, to 

 calculate, by his own method of substractions, a geometrical 

 progression slower still than what he adopted, a task which 

 he alludes to as a desideratum, the tables of Briggs, calculated 

 to fourteen decimals, would have possessed no superiority over 

 his.* 



On the Quadrupeds and Birds inhabiting the County of Suther- 

 land, observed there during an Excursion in the Summer of' 

 1834. By P. J. Selby, Esq. F.R.S.E., F.L.S. &c. &c. 

 (Continued from p. 161.) 



' AVES. 



1. Aquila chrysaeta, Golden Eagle. — In the mountainous districts this 

 species is still tolerably abundant, although every device is put in prac- 

 tice to capture or destroy them by the appointed fox-hunters and shep- 

 herds, the premiums paid for the adult birds, as well as the eggs and 

 young, being liberal. They attack and often prove very destructive to 

 the young lambs, particularly when their eyry is not far distant from the 

 lambing district of a farm. They are sometimes taken in traps, but more 

 frequently shot, after patient and sometimes long-continued watching. 

 They breed in the highest and most inaccessible precipices, and it is rarelj-- 

 that the young or eggs can be got at, even by the dangerous experiment 

 of suspending a person by a rope from the summit of the cliff in which 

 the eyry is placed. Several hairbreadth escapes, as well as fatal acci- 

 dents, were narrated to us by individuals who had been engaged in these 



perilous undertakings. 2. Haliaetus albicillus. Cinereous Sea- Eagle: 



Upon the northern precipitous coast of Sutherland the great sea-eagle is 

 still frequently seen soaring above the waters, or his hoarse bark heard 



* This terminates M. Biot's general abstract of the life of Napier, and the 

 principle of his great invention. We shall take another opportunity of laying 

 before our readers the remainder of M. Biot's paper, which is occupied with 

 a review of Napier's minor inventions, and a scientific analysis of his canon 

 of the logarithms. — Translator. 



