EAGLE 175 



the extirpation of Eagles seems to have been carried on almost 

 imaflfected by the prudent considerations which in the northern 

 kingdom have operated so favourably for the race, and except in 

 the wildest parts of Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry, Eagles in the 

 sister-island are said to be birds of the past. 



Of the two British species the Erne (Icel. (J^rn) or Sea-Eagle 

 (by some called also the White-tailed and Cinereous Eagle), Hallaetus 

 alhicilla, has of late years suffered severe persecution, so that at 

 the present time there is probably not a single pair left on the 

 mainland of Scotland, while not fifty years ago it frequented almost 

 every steep headland on our northern shores. Afiecting chiefly the 

 coast, mostly building its nest on sea-clifts, it has been at the 

 mercy of any adventurer, and in the absence of the protection 

 which the practice of deer-stalldng has afforded the other native 

 species, it has been ruthlessly destroyed, and apparently to the 

 benefit of nobody in particular, for the species lives in great part 

 on the fish and refuse that is thrown up on the shore, though it 

 not unfrequently takes living prey, such as lambs, hares, and 

 rabbits. On these last, indeed, young examples mostly feed 

 when they wander southward in autumn, as they yearly do, and 

 appear in England. The adults are distinguished by their prevalent 

 greyish-brown colour, their pale head, yellow beak, and white tail 

 — characters, however, wanting in the immature, which do not 

 assume the perfect plumage for some three or four years. The 

 eyry is commonly placed in a high cliff or on an island in a lake — 

 sometimes on the ground, at others in a tree — and consists of a 

 vast mass of sticks, in the midst of which is formed a hollow lined 

 with Luzula sylvatica (as first observed by the late Mr. John Wolley) 

 or some similar grass, and here are laid the two or three white 

 eggs. In former days the Sea-Eagle seems to have bred in several 

 parts of England — as the Lake district, and possibly even in the 

 Isle of Wight and on Dartmoor. This species inhabits all the 

 northern part of the Old World from Iceland to Kamchatka, 

 and breeds in Europe so far to the southward as Albania. It 

 is also found in Greenland ; but is replaced in the New World 

 by the White-headed or Bald Eagle, H. leucocepkalus, a bird of 

 similar habits, and the chosen emblem of the United States of 

 America. In the far east of Asia occurs a still larger and finer 

 Sea-Eagle, H. pelagicus, remarkable for its white thighs and upper 

 wing-coverts. South-eastern Europe and India furnish a much 

 smaller species, H. leucoryphus, which has its representative, //. 



Eagle was a fitting adjunct to the grandeur of his Argyllshire mountain-scenery, 

 and a good equivalent for the occasional loss of a lamb, or the slight deduction 

 from the rent paid by his tenantry in consequence. How faithfully his wishes 

 were carried out by his head-forester, the late Peter Robertson, the present 

 writer has abundant means of knowing. 



