394 FALCON AND EAGLE GROUP 



of freshwater where good fishing is to be obtained, and in India an 

 alh'ed species is commonly to be seen hundreds of miles inland. 

 When alive, it may be recognised unseen by its loud scream. Fish 

 forms its main article of food, but snakes, frogs, and water-birds are 

 also killed and eaten. The nest, or " eyrie," is a huge structure of 

 sticks lined with a little heather and grass, and occupied and added 

 to year after )-ear : it may be built either on a rocky islet in a lake, 

 a cliff, in a tree, or even on the ground. The eggs, which in the 

 British Isles arc usuall)' laid in April, are two in number, and when 

 unsoiled are white or whity-brown ; compared with those of the 

 golden eagle they are rounder, coarser-grained, and smaller, their 

 length ranging three-tenths on either side of three inches. 



_, , . . ., The eagle par cxcclloicc, although mainly a brown 

 Eagle (Aquila . . 



. ..^ , bird, is distinguished from its kindred by the prefix 



ehrysaetus). , „ , r 



" golden apparently on account of the tawny hue 



of the back of the neck — not a very happy designation, it is true, 



but never )et challenged. A rather smaller bird than its white-tailed 



cousin (the length of the female nex'er apparently exceeding a }'ard), 



it is distinguishable from that species at all ages b}' the legs being 



fully feathered to the base of the toes, which are covered with small 



mosaic-like scales except at the base of the claws, where there are 



three large transverse plates on the upper surface of each. In both 



sexes the general colour of the plumage is dark brown with a purplish 



gloss, becoming tawny on the nape of the neck, and mottled on the 



tail with dark grey ; the beak being horn-colour, the eyes dark brown, 



and the bare membrane at the base of the beak, together with the legs 



and feet, chrome-yellow. 



Mainly a dweller in mountainous regions, the eagle, with the 



remarkable exception of being unknown in Greenland, is a circumpolar 



species, ranging in the Old World as far south as the mountains of 



northern Africa, Asia Minor, the Himalaya, and Japan, and as far 



north as Lapland. In all these widely sundered areas it breeds, as 



it once did over much of the British Isles. Some two centuries ago, 



for instance, eagles' nests formed one of the glories of the mountains 



of Wales and of the Peak of Derbyshire, while for a century later 



they were to be met with in several localities in the Lake District, as 



well as in the south of Scotland. Nowadays, however, the golden 



eagle has ceased to breed south of the Clyde and the Forth, as it also 



has in Orkney ; but in many parts of the north of Scotland — thanks 



to special protection — it still holds its own as a breeding-species, as 



