AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 33 



tlien all the rest was easy. As we wound round the last corner along the ledge 

 on which the nest is built, the leading guide, to my great joy, called out that 

 the two eggs were all right. I followed him, and was the first to handle them. 

 Crouching on the nest, 1 kept very still, for the height seemed dizzy enough, 

 until I had packed up the eggs, which exhibited the Spoonbill-like character 

 of yore (one of them hardly marked at all), clearly showing that the original 

 hen bird had not, as we had supposed before, met her death a few years ago. 

 I took out the lining of the nest, and then began to look about me. After my 

 brother's account, and Mr. Wolley's accurate description, I almost felt disap- 

 pointed at the want of novelty. It seemed as if I had been there twenty times 

 before, as indeed in imagination I had. The only material difference I could 

 remark was that the latter had been able to sit upright in the nest, which 1 did 

 not find possible. This of coiu-se was owing to the nest having had so much 

 added to it dm-ing the last ten years ; and it is said now to project much more 

 than fomierly, which I can well believe. Close on my left hand, as I lay, was 

 some hares' flock, the only remains of prey about the place. The lining of the 

 nest — which I have since given to Mr. J. Hancock — was much as that which 

 my brother brought back in 1855. There was one very " pine-apple " looking 

 tuft of Luzula sylvatica. The spring at the back of the nest was hardly 

 dripping — not enough to qualify the whisky with, and the forester had to 

 get some water from the nearest snow-di-ift. A small tuft of a bright-green 

 plant, which I plucked from the rock at the back of the nest, has been identi- 

 fied for me by Mr. A. G. More as Chrysosplenium oppositifolium. Mr. Wolley's 

 description had mentioned golden saxifrage as gi-owing near by. We ate our 

 biscuits, and drank one another's healths, my companions not forgetting that 

 of Mr. Edge or of my brother, vidth whom they had in like manner sat there, 

 nor I omitting the old Eagle's, to whom I was so much indebted. We had an 

 indifferent view over the moors to the eastward ; and just opposite, the clouds 

 quite hid the top of the hill ; some of them came below us. After enjo}-iug 

 cm-selves for as long as we had time, we came out and began to descend. 

 The forester tried to make out on the snow the spoor we had seen in climbing 

 up, but he was miable to do so. It was fresh, or at least within a day or two. 

 It had evidently not been to the nest, though not far off". He was annoyed 

 at not discovering whose it was, and did not like it being supposed, as my 

 guide thought, that it was his son's ; was sure his own " laddie " would do no 

 such a thing as rim the risk of disturbing the bird which he knew his 

 father wanted to have left alone. He pointed out a nasty place close by, where 

 a year or two before a Deer had fallen, and had to be taken out. It was in a 

 cleft of a rock ; and the feat seemed almost impossible. He only succeeded 

 after a long time, and then by cutting it up where it lay. The descent was worse 

 to me than the getting up, but, with two such careful fellows, I knew the risk 

 of harm was small. Still it was comforting to feel a firm clutch every now 

 and then, and always just at the right moment. We reached the bottom 

 without a single slip. Arrived there, we saw the Eagle again soaring over 

 the hill, and again disappearing in the mist to the eastward. We had seen 

 nothing of her while in the nest, though the man who was holding the pony 

 for me below said she once came within a hundred yards of us ; if so, it must 

 must have been above oiu- heads. Here bidding the forester good bye, I 

 trotted oft' to bait the pon^^, before rejoining my guide on the road to another 

 nest.] 



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