76 



NESTING HABITS OBSERVED ABROAD OF SOME 

 RARE BRITISH BIRDS. 



BY 



F. C. SELOUS. 



Part III. 



(Continued from imge 51.) 



White-tailed Eagle. Haliaetus albicilla (L.). 



On February 8tli, 1895, whilst hunting wild goats on the 

 Maimun Dagh, Asia Minor, I saw an Eagle, disturbed by 

 some wood cutters, fly off a nest built on the decayed top of 

 a large stone pine far below me, and with my glasses I 

 thought I could see something white in the centre of the 

 nest. On the evening of the same day I went down to 

 examine the tree, and again put the bird off the nest, which 

 had e\ddently been used for many years, as it was a huge 

 structure, quite eight or nine feet in height, and six feet or 

 so in diameter. I got up to the base of this nest without 

 much difficulty, but could not get round it. 



Two days later I returned with some Turkish peasants, 

 who chopped a passage up the side of the nest, and brought 

 me down the one egg it contained, which was white, but 

 small, I thought, for the egg of a White-tailed Eagle. 

 Moreover, the tail of the bird, which flew off the nest, 

 although whitish did not seem to me to be piu-e white, and 

 at the time I did not feel quite sure as to its identity. 



Seven years later, however, early in February, 1902, I 

 revisited the Maimun Dagh and took one egg from the 

 same Eagle's nest oir February 8th, and a second on 

 February 16th. At this date the entire tail of each bird 

 appeared to be snow white, and there can be no doubt that 

 they were White-tailed Eagles. 



On February 16th, as my Turkish companions and I 

 were approaching the tree on which the nest was placed, 

 we put one of the birds off. We then sat down to take a 



