14 OUR RARER BIRDS 



scream, lend a charm to the Eagles' haunt. The wilderness is 

 varied by a deep clear mountain loch, a birch coppice, a deer 

 forest, a boggy waste ; or its desolation and dreariness is un- 

 broken where big gray rocks, bare hills, and dark frowning 

 glens are on every side in vast monotony. It must not be 

 supposed, however, that even in such secluded fastnesses as 

 these the Golden Eagle is a common bird. You may wander 

 up and down such romantic country for days and days together 

 without once having the good fortune to meet with him. He is 

 a great wanderer, often from home, and explores wide expanses 

 of country in his daily search for food. Sometimes you may 

 come across him as he sits silent and motionless on some 

 lofty crag, where his keen eye is ever on the alert for danger ; or 

 more frequently he is seen high in air soaring in boundless 

 freedom over the mountains and the heaths, gliding round 

 and round in wide circles and searching the ground below, or 

 on regular beat of wing hastening to his nest and his mate in 

 some distant glen. There is something majestic about the 

 flight of this noble bird. In ever widening circles he sometimes 

 glides round and round high in air with only a few occasional 

 beats of his long ample wings. Frequently he glides straight 

 ahead, seeming to swim or rather float through the air. Anon 

 he poises like a huge Kestrel and surveys the ground below ; 

 then with regular beats of his broad wings passes away into 

 the blue distance that encircles the hills. Many a time and 

 oft the Eagle is mobbed in his trackless course by smaller 

 yet more courageous birds. You may sometimes see the 

 Eaven or the Hooded Crow buffet him in the air, should he 

 pass too near their rocky homes ; whilst Swallows and Meadow 

 Pipits attracted by curiosity often flit and flutter round him 

 as he sails alongj. 



All the birds of prey are capable of going without food 

 for a considerable length of time — a practice which often 

 serves the Golden Eagle in good stead when his prey is 



