340 Bonelli’s Eagle 
J 
site, when these birds were forced to move elsewhere it was 
taken possession of by a pair of Bonelliis Eagles. In the years 
when they elected to occupy an alternative site some Ravens used 
it. In 1894 one of the old birds was shot and its mate forsook 
the locality. The following year some Griffon Vultures seized on 
the old nest. The big female with outspread wings now in the 
case of Vultures at the British Museum of Natural History was 
shot from off this nest. In 1905 I once again found myself near 
the place and from a distance saw a large dark-coloured Eagle leave 
the nest. It is a good example of the uncertainties attending bird- 
identification, a task so lightly assumed by many, that in spite of 
the fact that I have seen many Bonelli’s Eagles as well as Golden 
I made the mistake of imagining the bird I had seen to be a Golden 
Eagle. I was alone at the time and the nest required ropes to 
reach it and some days elapsed before I was able to arrange for 
a party to assist me. The second time I visited the cliff, to my 
great surprise, in place of the dark Eagle I had seen before a 
white-breasted bird flew off the nest, without doubt a Bonelli’s 
Eagle. It was evidently a case for investigation, so concealing 
myself in the scrub at the foot of the cliff I waited and watched. 
Before long an Eagle, evidently the female, from its size, returned 
and entered the nest. Very soon afterwards | saw a second Eagle 
flying straight towards me which with my glass I made out to 
be an adult Bonelli with white underparts. Onward it came and 
when it was less than 50 yards from the cliff its mate dashed 
off the nest and flew off in the direction the other had come from. 
The two birds passed one another like a flash, in mid-air, at a 
point less than 100 ft. above me and about 30 yards to my front. 
I thus had an unrivalled chance of comparing them and noted that 
the outgoing bird was the larger female in immature plumage, 
whereas the incoming bird was the smaller male in the white adult 
dress I have already described. | submit that it would be impossible 
