2 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



The eagle has often seemed to me to be in a singularly 

 fortunate position. In the first place, it is without a single 

 formidable enemy, if man be excepted ; and then again 

 it is to a great extent independent of the weather for its 

 food supply, for under the most rigorous conditions of 

 continued frost and snow it can still follow its hereditary 

 prey, the unobtrusive ptarmigan and the more demon- 

 strative Red Grouse, as they seek out sheltered quarters 

 till the passing of the storm. I think I am right in saying 

 that the eagle is the only bird to be seen on the highest 

 of our mountain-tops at the dead of winter. Here, at a 

 height of over 4000 feet above sea-level, even the ptar- 

 migan is unable to exist under the polar conditions which 

 prevail from November till May. It is not the cold which 

 drives the birds lower down the hill slopes, but it is the 

 complete absence of food. On these mountain plateaux 

 even the ridges, so exposed that no snow can remain on 

 them, are covered with a thick sheet of ice, and all food 

 is withheld from any bird which should be so hardy as to 

 wish to pass its time at these quarters. But with the 

 eagle the case is different. It is able, without a move- 

 ment of its great wings, to visit the highest grounds at any 

 season, and on more than one occasion I remember having 

 watched its dark form against those spotless expanses of 

 snow which no one except those familiar with the high 

 hills could imagine to exist on these Islands of ours. 



There is no bird that I know which possesses the same 

 strength, the same gracefulness of flight, as the Golden 

 Eagle. I think I first realised the remarkable powers of its 

 soaring on a certain occasion when I was sheltering behind 

 a cairn on a hill -top over 3000 feet above sea-level. A 

 westerly wind was sweeping the hill with such strength 

 that progress had been difficult against it, j'ct a couple 

 of Golden Eagles, flying dead against the wind, moved 

 past me at a speed of between twenty and thirty miles 



