210 Golden Eagle 



The reason for the increase of the Golden Eagle is simple enough. 

 There has, for the past twenty years or more, been a steady foresting 

 of the hilly estates of the Western Highlands ; that is to say, the 

 sheep have been taken off, and the deer have come on. The rents for 

 the sheep-farms were small, and the rents for tiie deer-forests 

 big. Viewed simply as a commercial proposition, it was far 

 better for the proprietor to place this rough land under deer, 

 than under sheep. 



Eagles are strictly protected, themselves, their eggs and their 

 chicks, all the year through, by all the County Councils in Scotland. 

 I doubt if the County Council order in the remote districts would 

 have much effect in itself, but, as soon as the ground is put under 

 deer, the Eagle is jealously preserved by the proprietor of the forest, 

 and b}^ his whole staff of keepers, stalkers and gillies. It is tlie deer- 

 forest, not the County Council, which saves the Eagle at the present 

 time. The forested land is continuallv increasing, and the Eagle 

 with the forest. 



Why does the proprietor of the forest extend his hospitality 

 to the Eagle ? Because the Eagle kills the blue hares, ptarmigan 

 and occasional Grouse on the ground. All these are an abomination 

 in the forest, and often ruin the best-laid plans. A frightened hare, 

 bolting at full speed in sight of the deer, or a cock Grouse, rising with 

 a loud cackle near the end of a stalk, will as certainly disturb. the deer 

 as if you deliberately fired a gun or gave them \our wind. So the 

 proprietor of a forest would like to see all the hares, ptarmigan and 

 grouse banished from the ground, and nothing left but the deer and 

 the everlasting hills. There is no harm that Eagles can do on 

 forested ground, beyond the very occasional lifting of an under- 

 sized red-deer calf ; anything else they kill is all to the good of the 

 stalking. 



But there is another side to this picture. There is the sheep- 

 farm as well as the deer-forest. It often happens that a large 

 sheep-farm marches with the forest. The Eagle makes the forest his 

 headquarters during the autumn and winter months, and seldom 

 appears on the sheep-farm or gives any trouble there. W'ith the 

 advent of spring, he sometimes leaves the forest, and prospects 

 for a favourable nesting-site on the sheep-farm, and finally establishes 

 himself there for the summer. 



I have read in books of a Kestrel taking an occasional chick 

 off the rearing-field ; or of an Eagle sometimes lifting a sickly lamb 

 on a sheep-farm. The Eagle and the Kestrel are, in fact, much 

 alike in this respect. A Kestrel which begins on the rearing-field 

 will stick to it until he dies, or until the season is over ; and an Eagle 

 that nests on a sheep-farm and starts on lambs, will go on taking 

 them until they are grown too big for him to carry. As some ewes 

 Iamb early and some late, the Eagle gets a pretty extended 

 season. The old story holds good, that wherever food is plentiful 

 and easily procurable, it is wasted. The lambs are plentiful, they 



