Golden Eagle 211 



are near at hand, and they are incapable of offering the 

 smallest resistance, and the Eagle picks them up at the rate of 

 two or three a day. 



A great deal has been written about the majesty, nobility and 

 courage of the Golden Eagle. The only thing majestic about him 

 is his size. He is not a noble bird. The Peregrine Falcon is the 

 family aristocrat in Great Britain, the Eagle is but a poor and 

 distant kinsman. His nearest affinit\' is the Buzzard. The habits 

 and appearance of these two birds are curiously similar. The 

 soaring Buzzard is constantly mistaken for the Eagle, and the Eagle 

 for the Buzzard, even by a trained observer, unless he has some 

 guide by which to judge the size of the distant object. 



Lastly, the Eagle is not courageous ; for his size, he is certainly 

 the most cowardly of all our Raptors. His prey consists of small, 

 defenceless animals, like ptarmigan, blue hares, or new-born lambs, 

 all picked up from the ground. He never makes the smallest attempt 

 to defend his nest. At the hrst suggestion of danger, the bird seeks 

 safety in flight, and keeps out of the wa}' till all risk is passed. The 

 stories one reads of Eagles attacking a man at tlie nest, or carrying 

 off children, are, in my opinion, apocryphal. 



I was in Argyleshire during the early part of Ma\- of this \-ear, 

 and knowing that an Eagle was breeding on the estate. I walked 

 over the hills to look at the nest, which was built on another part of 

 the ground to that usually selected. There was nothing unusual 

 about the locality or the nest itself. The nest had a large, bulky 

 foundation of sticks (mostl}' the thicker stalks of " big heather " 

 that had been burned and blackened, but not consumed). A finer 

 lining of coarse grass with a few lea\'es of the Wood-rush {Luzula 

 sylvatica) completed the somewhat untidy structure. The site 

 chosen was a deep ravine or corrie, and the nest was about two- 

 thirds of the way up the face ; there was a sloping o\'er-hang on the 

 top of the cliff, making it ver}- difficult to get a \-iew of the nest 

 from above. The female flew off the nest when I was quite a mile 

 away, and the cock I never saw at all. 



I made my first examination from the top ; with the keeper 

 holding on to my legs, I just managed to peer over enough to 

 see into the nest, fifteen feet below me. In it were two eggs 

 (no doubt near hatching), and on the edge of the nest a cock 

 Grouse newly killed. Then I climbed down into the bottom 

 of the corrie, and approached the nest from that aspect. Lying 

 round about on the rocks in the immediate vicinit}- (the furthest 

 was not more than a hundred yards away) were three freshly- 

 killed lambs, partly broken up, that is to say, some of the 

 daintier morsels had been removed from them ; and on a rock 

 below the nest a newly-killed blue hare, which had not been 

 touched. This was the day's supply for one bird. The cock 

 took his meals elsewhere. As the hen was still sitting on eggs, 

 the food I saw was for her consumption alone. A cock Grouse, 



