WHITE-TAILED SEA-EAGLE. 227 



plisli, I sat down in despair, and niiglit have remained there 

 for hours, had not a shepherd opportunely come to my aid. 

 Sometimes the breeding place is easily accessible, being in a 

 small rock by the side of a lake, and I have seen one that 

 could have been reached with a fishing-rod. On a flat islet 

 in a small lake in Harris, one of the Hebrides, a pair of these 

 birds bred for many years, although there are lofty crags in the 

 neighbourhood. 



In these islands, where the Sea-Eagles are still numerous, 

 the nests are sometimes destroyed by letting down into them a 

 bundle of heath and straw inclosing a burning peat ; or an 

 adventurous person is lowered in the same manner. On such 

 occasions the parent birds, although they evince the greatest 

 distress, seldom attempt to molest their enemy, but fly in circles 

 at a distance, giving expression to their rage by loud screams, 

 and frequently stretching out their feet and expanding their 

 talons, as if to intimidate him. Yet it appears that they will 

 sometimes hazard an attack, for in the island of Lewis I was 

 told of two such instances, a pair having assaulted a woman 

 who was descending a rock on her way home from the moors, 

 and inflicted some severe scratches on her neck and shoulders, 

 and another individual having unexpectedly struck with its wing 

 a man who was watching its arrival on the edge of a cliff over- 

 hanging its nest. 



When the breeding season is over, the young disperse, and 

 although these birds are not of social habits, several indivi- 

 duals may often be seen at no great distance traversing the hills 

 or shores, when there is plunder to be obtained. At seasons of 

 mortality among sheep, as in the end of autumn, wdien the 

 braxy commits its ravages, or in the end of spring, when severe 

 weather often causes the death of the young lambs, they are 

 not uncommonly seen hovering about. Their food consists of 

 carrion of every description, for which they search the moors 

 and pastures, stranded fish, young sea-birds, and small quad- 

 rupeds. Their sight must be keen, like that of other birds of 

 prey, but in looking for food they do not soar to a vast eleva- 

 tion, as has been alleged by many, but fly at the height of a few 

 hundred yards, sweeping along the hill sides with a steady 



