AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 20 



some of its colouring-matter on the side on which it is blown^ from 

 the wiping which would be necessary during and after that operation. 

 I have not touched it with water since it arrived. In giving my corre- 

 spondent a drill last year, I had told him to take care not to wash the 

 eggs. The white one appeared not to have been cleansed at all, as 

 there was a good deal of dirt upon it, which I thought it desirable to 

 remove. I did so with pure water and a cambric handkerchief, touch- 

 ing it very lightly. After this washing, it shows, I think, traces of 

 fine spots and lines, especially towards the larger end. It was not 

 at all stained or deeply grained with dirt, all this being superficial. 

 Comparing it with five other white Eaglets eggs now before me, I 

 cannot hesitate to attribute some faint yellow specks to true mark- 

 ing ; and this is rendered more evident by comparing it with its fellow, 

 the very first stage of whose thick sprinkling the white egg may well 

 be taken to represent. The coloured egg, which strongly reminds 

 one of eggs of the Gyrfalcon, is not unlike one in Mr. Henry Wal- 

 ter's cabinet ; it also belongs to the same class of eggs as the one 

 Mr. Falconer has, laid in confinement, and the fragments which I ob- 

 tained with a white one last year (1851) [§ 32]. My correspondent's 

 letters of 9th and 22nd June contain the following particulars about 

 these eggs : — " I took the Golden Eagle's eggs from a rock on the 

 20th April." " The bird flew oflF, the same as the one at the corrie last 

 year did [§ 28], but a little quicker, and afterwards came round once 

 above our heads, and then we lost sight of her. I could have shot 

 her flying off" the nest, but this I did not intend to do. I saw her 

 sitting on her nest from the south side of the rock. I sent one of 

 my men down on the rope from above to the nest, which was from 

 twenty to thirty feet from where we hold the rope ; and down from 

 the nest to the bottom of the rock is about a hundred and fifty 

 yards. The nest was made of different kinds of small sticks and 

 that broad grass you have seen [Luzula sylvatica]. There was no 

 game in the nest, but there were some pieces of Hares and some 

 feathers scattered about the top of the rock. The bfrds were formed 

 in the eggs, but the bones were not thicker than pins." 



On 10th April, 1851, the site of this nest, among several others, was 

 pointed out to me. It was on a very high rock ; but my informant 

 said that a man could climb from above so near it as to push the 

 young ones out with a long pole, as he himself had seen done. He 

 had also let a man down with a rope. There was a nest there fifteen 

 years in succession, but not for the last two years, though, on look- 

 ing with his glass, he said there were fresh sticks, as he could see the 

 green branches, altogether a cart-load, and, at the distance we were, 



