THE TRUE EAGLES. i59 



" King of Birds." Otherwise there is nothing very awe-inspiring 

 in the habits of the Eagle, which are further sullied by its car- 

 rion-eating propensities. Mr. Seebohm says: "The Eagle in its 

 habits is more of a Vulture than a Falcon, and his motions 

 are sluggish, cowardly, and tame, compared with the death- 

 swoop of the Peregrine, or the brilliant performnnce of the 

 Sparrow-Hawk, or the Merlin, who would not deign to feast 

 on such lowly fare." 



Nest. — The Golden Eagle is an early breeder, and its nest 

 has been found while the country was still covered with snow. 

 The young are hatched by the end of April. The nest is a 

 large and rough structure of sticks and heather, with a lining 

 of fern and moss and tufts of green herbage. It is often as 

 much as five feet in diameter, and is generally placed on a 

 cliff, more rarely on a tree, in the British Islands at least. 



Eggs. — Two, occasionally three, in number. They vary in 

 colour from white to richly marked varieties. Sometimes 

 rufous spots are distributed over the whole egg, while in the 

 more handsomely coloured ones the whole surface is clouded 

 with light earthy-rufous, while on some of these clouded eggs, 

 bright rufous or rufous-brown markings are interspersed. 

 Axis, 2S-y^; diam., 2-25-2-45. 



II. THE LARGER SPOTTED EAGLE. AQUILA MACULATA.* 



Fa/cv viaculatus^ Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 258 (1788). 



Aqiiila 7iccvia, Gm. ; Newt. ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 20 (1871) ; 



Seebohm, Brit. B. i. p. 106 (1883) ; Saunders, Man. Br. B. 



p. 315 (1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxv. (1893). 

 Aqiiila c/a?iga, Pall; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. i. p. 246 (1874) ; 



Dresser, B. Eur. v. p. 499, pi. 339 (1878) ; B. O. U. List 



Br. B. p. 96 (1883). 



* The difficulty of assigning a specific name for the Spotted Eagles has 

 long been recognised by ornithologists, and the smaller of the three races 

 has generally been called Aquila ncvvia^ the larger form A. clatiga, and 

 the Indian form A. hastata. Dr. \V. T. Blanford has recently reviewed the 

 the whole of the evidence, and accepts the verdict that the Falco n-vvhis 

 of Gmelin refers to the Common Buzzard, and that the name maculata 

 belongs to the larger form, generally known as Aquila clau^a of Pallas. 

 I agree with Dr. Blanford in adopting this name. 



