180 The Booted Eagle and the Snake Eagle 
a bough close to the bole, thus differing from the Snake Eagle, 
which habitually builds its nest well out along a bough. Booted 
Eagles will at times lay in the disused nests of the Snake Eagle. 
They usually select a tree which affords a good site for a nest, 
30 ft. to go ft. from the ground and they seem to have a particular 
affection for trees growing near the summit of a steep hillside. 
At times they will resort to lower sites, thus the nest of which a 
picture is given was placed in the fork of an oak tree not 15 ft. 
from the ground, the tree, however, was near the top of a steep 
bluff, full 60 ft. high. 
I have never yet seen a nest of the Booted Eagle that I could 
not climb to. For a few a rope was required to surmount the lower 
portion of the trunk, whilst in other cases this could be effected more 
conveniently by climbing a pendent bough. 
The picture; ‘given in Il., Chapter IV on" p. 63, 0n® dinec- 
Climbing, 
used for years by Booted Eagles and is still in their occupation. 
of ascending a tree in this fashion is of one that has been 
All the nests I have visited, and they are many, have been built 
of branches of oak bearing the dead leaves, thickly lined with fresh 
green oak leaves. The care bestowed by these Eagles in providing 
a plentiful lining to their nests is well shown by the accompanying 
picture which was taken when the first ege@ was laid and all the 
leaves composing the lining were recently plucked. They lay from 
one to three white eggs, much the same size and shape as Bantam 
Fowl’s. Two is probably the most usual number laid and several 
days usually pass between the laying of the first and second egg. 
They are somewhat irregular in their date of nesting, thus I have 
found a nest with freshly laid eggs as early as 12 April, and others 
again so late as 25 May. Again I have found a nest with a 
young bird only 2 or 3 days old on 27 June and another containing 
two fully fledged young, certainly 6 weeks old on t July, only four 
days later, in the same season. 
