162 FALCONIFORMES CHAP. 
disturbance; they may, however, often be seen circling aloft or 
Winging their way to great distances, while they can hardly be 
distinguished from Buzzards in misty weather even by experienced 
keepers. Captures are made with the talons, but Eagles are com- 
paratively seldom trained for Falconry; yet the present species 
has been so used in Europe, as well as by the Kirgiz Tartars, who 
call it “ Bergut ” or “ Bearcoot.” The cry is shrill and yelping. 
The nest is commonly placed in a tree, though in Scotland such 
sites are seldom utilized nowadays, a projecting rock on the side 
of some bare mountain-glen or a sea-girt crag being selected instead. 
Here a cavity, rather than a ledge, is chosen, and a huge mass of sticks 
or heather is collected, with a bedding of hair, fur, wool, moss, dry 
fern and an occasional feather, or more commonly of tufts of Luzula 
sylvatica, garnished with an odd pine-shoot. Two or three eyries 
are often used in turn, the pile increasing on each occasion. At 
times the spot can be reached without a rope by a skilful chmber, 
and in some countries nests have been found upon the ground. The 
two or three eggs—four being quite exceptional—are generally 
marked with red-brown, crimson, purplish or grey, but, though 
fine blotches are usual, one if not more of the set is frequently 
white. They are laid very early in spring and—as in other Birds of 
Prey—not always on successive days. The Golden Eagle is distin- 
euished from theSea-Eagle(p. 163) by the feathering reaching to the. 
toes, which have only the last joint scutellated, and the remainder 
reticulated: the adult is normally blackish-brown, with tawny 
lanceolate nape-plumes and tail mottled with grey ; the young have 
white bases to the rectrices. The colour, however, varies much. 
Aquila clanga, the Spotted Eagle of British lists, and its 
smaller form, A. pomarina, range across Europe, except the 
most northern portions, and extend to North Africa, India, 
and North China, their respective distributions beimg somewhat 
uncertain. The colour is brown, with pale nape and light 
margins to the feathers of the wings and rump; the manners 
are those of Eagles generally, but the food includes frogs, reptiles, 
and grasshoppers, in addition to small mammals and_ birds. 
A, hastata of India is hardly separable, and the African -A. 
wahlbergi is very similar, as is the larger A. nipalensis, the 
Steppe Eagle of the former country, Eastern Europe, Eastern 
Asia, and, exceptionally, North Africa, a plain brown bird 
with a fulyous nuchal patch. It commonly builds its nest 
