18 AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 



having been carefully tied up^ I shouted to ascend. The first pull, 

 they told me, was very hard ; but I assisted them by climbing myself, 

 and in half a minute I was high and dry, and we shook hands all 

 round : we had finished our " wee drop " of whiskey before. During 

 this time the Eagle did not appear, though it had again come within 

 two or three hundred yards before I went down, but without scream- 

 ing. All agreed that no man had ever been there before. My com- 

 panion and the boy, tired and cold, reached the top of the clifi* just 

 in time to congratulate us on our success. In going home I put the 

 eggs alternately in my breeches' pocket to keep them warm, for I 

 was anxious to save the life of the young. In the evening I liberated 

 the hatching one by an oval opening, and the egg is as good as ever. 

 This is the one with the fewest marks upon it : and it must have been 

 laid and sat upon several days before the other ; for when I opened 

 that in the same manner, part of the yelk was not yet absorbed. I 

 put the young bird from the first egg before the fire ; its down soon 

 dried, and it became like a powder-puff: I kept it as warm as possi- 

 ble, but it died in two days : perhaps I tried to feed it too soon ; or it 

 might have been neglected while I was out. The other one I put in 

 spirits. The down on the legs, as far as the division of the toes, 

 proved them to be Golden Eagles. The eyes were not open. The 

 " diamond " on the beak, as in other young birds, used for making 

 the hole in the egg, was very conspicuous. 



P.S. 6th AprU, 1852.— Mr. H. E. W^^^** has this day, for the 

 second time, made me a bond fide offer of twenty pounds for this 

 pair of eggs. 



§ 27. One, with the half of another. — Sutherlandshire, 4 May, 

 1849. "J. W. 2>e." 



0. W. tab. iv. fig. 1. 



On 1st May, 1849, 1 looked in vain for an Eagle's nest, though the 

 birds were said to be daily seen about. I caused huge stones to be 

 pitched down every hundred yards or so. In past years a pair 

 had built in at least four different spots about. A man had climbed 

 to three of the places this year and found none in use. He gave one 

 egg to a gentleman, probably the late Mr. Charles St. John, when 

 he called at his housed The rocks are wooded like the range of 

 the High Tor in Derbyshire. Next day, after harrying a White- 



> [The following year Mr. WoUey heard that this nest, for which he had sought 

 so much, had been found, a few days after he left the ground, with a young bird, 

 which the finder killed in the nest, shooting the hen Eagle also ! — Ed,] 



