14 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



ever fed on dead meat — they always have their provender 

 provided from day to day in a perfectly fresh state. 



The Black Eagle nests early. In January he may be 

 seen assisting his mate in the repairing of his eyrie by 

 carrying to it large pine branches, and this repairing or 

 building of the nest goes on till mid-March, at which time 

 the birds which are nesting in the less exposed localities 

 begin to lay. One 23rd of March I visited an eyrie situ- 

 ated in a Scots fir in a deer forest. The elevation for the 

 eagle was rather a low one — about 1400 feet —and I found 

 that the hen bird was already covering her eggs, though 

 she did not allow of near approach. The eagle utilises 

 two kinds of nesting-places in Scotland. It chooses for 

 the construction of its eyrie either an ancient tree com- 

 manding a wide outlook, or a ledge on some precipice or 

 steep hillside. Towards the west coast of Scotland its 

 eyrie is rarely found in a tree, but in the central deer 

 forests, where most of my notes have been obtained, 

 the two nesting situations are about equally utilised. I 

 think those eagles which build in trees have rather a 

 better chance of rearing their broods in safety than those 

 which construct their eyries on ledges of rocks. To begin 

 with, the birds choosing the former situation are inde- 

 pendent of the weather because, no matter what depth 

 of snow may cover the ground, they can build their eyrie 

 and cover their eggs without fear of the storm. On the 

 other hand, it is sometimes impossible for the birds nest- 

 ing on a ledge of rock to approach their eyrie till well 

 into the spring, so great an accumulation of winter's snow 

 may cover it during the month of March. I also think 

 that the young eaglets hatched on a rock are more liable 

 to fall from the nest. For sanitary purposes they are in 

 the habit of approaching the extreme edge of the eyrie, 

 and on one occasion I found a youthful eaglet in a most 

 precarious position, and maintaining its hold by one leg 



