212 AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 



ing the tyrant is not bent on plundering his nest, leaves him to 

 pursue his course unmolested. Over woods and green fields 

 and scattered hamlets, speeds the Eagle, and now he enters the 

 long valley of the Dee, near the upper end of which is dimly 

 seen through the thin grey mist the rock of his rest. About a 

 mile from it he meets his mate, who has been abroad on a simi- 

 lar errand, and is returning with a white hare in her talons. 

 They congratulate each other with loud yelping cries, which 

 rouse the drowsy shepherd on the strath below, who mindful 

 of the lambs carried off in springtime, sends after them his 

 malediction. Now they reach their nest, and are greeted by 

 their young with loud clamour. 



Let us mark the spot. It is the shelf of a rock, concealed by 

 a projecting angle, so that it cannot be injured from above, and 

 too distant from the base to be reached by a shot. In the 

 crevices are luxuriant tufts of Rhodiola rosea, and scattered 

 around are many alpine plants, which it would delight the bo- 

 tanist to enumerate. The mineralogist would not be less pleased 

 could he with chisel and hammer reach that knob which glit- 

 ters with crystals of quartz and felspar. The nest is a bulky 

 fabric, five feet at least in diameter, rudely constructed of dead 

 sticks, twigs, and heath, flat, unless in the centre, where it is 

 a little hollowed and covered with wool and feathers. Slovenly 

 creatures you would think those two young birds, clothed 

 with white down, amid which the larger feathers are seen pro- 

 jecting, for their fluid dung is scattered all over the sticks, 

 and you see that had the nest been formed more compactly 

 of softer materials it would have been less comfortable. Strewn 

 around too are fragments of lambs, hares, grouse, and other 

 birds, in various stages of decay. Alighting on the edges of 

 the nest, the eagles deposit their prey, partially pluck off" the 

 hair and feathers, and rudely tearing up the flesh, lay it before 

 their ever-hungry young. 



The nest of the Golden Eagle is sometimes plundered by 

 letting a person down to it on a rope, and more rarely by climb- 

 ing to it. This species is bolder than the Sea Eagle, and has 

 been known to attack individuals thus occupied. In Suther- 

 land, two young men having plundered a nest, were returning 



