THE GOLDEN EAGLE 17 



thriving eaglet in their eyrie were in the habit of bringing 

 to the nest, at intervals of a day or two, young and delicate 

 raspberry shoots which they thought — and rightly — im- 

 proved the look of their home. 



Although as a rule the lining which receives the eggs 

 is soft and comfortable, I once saw in an eyrie a large 

 stick, nearly the thickness of my wrist, against which the 

 eggs were lying, and which one would have thought must 

 have caused incessant inconvenience to the brooding eagle. 



The eggs are two in number. Occasionally three are 

 recorded, but in the numbers of eyries I have examined 

 I have never seen the latter number, nor have I heard of 

 anyone who has done so, and out of over fifty eyries robbed 

 between 1870 and 1895, only three contained three eggs. 

 The eggs are of a dirty white ground colour, and are 

 blotched and spotted with reddish brown. It is a note- 

 worthy and interesting fact that one of the eggs is invari- 

 ably more lightly spotted and marked than its fellow. It 

 has been my experience that when two eaglets are reared, 

 one is a cock, the other a hen, and it is possible that this 

 marking of the eggs may have something to do with the 

 sex of the bird, though I am afraid this theory is opposed 

 to the scientific one that the sex of the bird is determined 

 only just before the hatching of the egg. As far as I 

 know, however, the subject has never in this case been 

 investigated. Some eggs of the eagle are strikingly hand- 

 some, but others have hardly any markings on them at 

 all, and I believe that many of the clutches taken from 

 Archangel are pure white. 



It is quite remarkable what long- continued exposure 

 the eggs of the Golden Eagle will stand. I have known 

 of a case when an eagle's eyrie was discovered on a day 

 of severe frost and periodic snow-squalls. The mother 

 bird was sitting closely, but was put off her eggs, and I 

 think it is no exaggeration to say that she remained away 



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