36 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



The Lake District was another former home of the 

 eagle. So long ago as 1272, it was written that the 

 tenants in Liddcsdale must preserve the nests of sparrow- 

 hawks and eagles. In the seventeenth century they 

 bred among the mountains of central and western Lake- 

 land, notably in the region of the precipices at the 

 head of Ullswater lake. Pennant wrote of the mountains 

 at the head of Windermere, that eagles breed in many 

 places. " Those who take their nests find in them great 

 numbers of moorgame ; they are besides very pernicious to 

 heronries : it is remarked in the laying season of the herons, 

 when the eagles terrify them from their nests, that crows, 

 watching their opportunity, will steal away their eggs." 

 In 1833 the Golden Eagle bred in Dumfriesshire, while 

 in Kirkcudbrightshire the last nests were towards the end 

 of the fifties. In 1668 a Golden Eagle's eyrie was re- 

 ported from Derbyshire on trustworthy evidence, and 

 about 1750 it bred on Cheviot, a fine hill 2700 feet in 

 height in Northumberland. In Ireland it still frequents 

 some of the most mountainous and least-frequented dis- 

 tricts, but is not so common as was formerly the case. 

 It is said that the Golden Eagles nesting on the Outer 

 Hebrides are smaller and darker in colour than those of 

 the mainland. The eggs here are laid during the first 

 week of April , which is over a fortnight later than on the 

 mainland. 



There is no bird which has so wide a range as the 

 Golden Eagle — in fact, it is met with almost through- 

 out the world. Considering the numbers of eagles which 

 leave the nest each year in Scotland, it is surprising 

 that there should not be a more marked increase in their 

 numbers, but it is possible the young birds migrate to the 

 continent, as the North Sea must form a quite ineffectual 

 barrier to a bird possessing the wing power of the eagle. 

 With the exception of Iceland, from which, curiously enough, 



