90 BRITISH BIRDS. 
clusively confined to young or immature birds. From the Tyne, north- 
wards up the east coast of Scotland, immature specimens of this Eagle 
are usually met with in autumn ; and at several of the bold headlands, 
notably at St. Abbs Head in Berwickshire, a solitary bird will make its 
appearance and remain a week or so until the supply of food is exhausted 
or the incessant persecution to which it is subject sends it off to more 
suitable quarters. Again, in the south-eastern counties of England this 
bird is often seen in the autumn months in immature plumage. In these 
districts they frequent rabbit-warrens, or take up their station on one of 
the large sheets of water, where they wage an incessant warfare on the 
waterfowl congregated there for the winter. Eagles of all kinds are 
thorough gipsies in their mode of life—here one day, fifty miles away the 
next, a flight of a hundred miles being nothing but a morning stroll for 
an Eagle. This circumstance,.coupled with the fact that their haunts are 
so vast and difficult of access, explains why it is that the birds are so 
rarely seen, and why the impression is so deeply rooted that the birds are 
well nigh extinct in Great Britain. 
In Pomerania, especially between Stettin and the Baltic, the Sea-Eagle is a 
common resident, breeding in the forests. It builds an enormous nest, some- 
times six to eight feet in diameter, near the top of a pine or on the horizon- 
tal branch of an oak or beech, preferring forests near inland seas and large 
lakes. Instances have been known of its breeding in the same ‘‘ Horst” for 
twenty years in succession. Every year some addition is made to the nest, 
until it becomes five or six feet high. Occasionally a pair of Sea-Eagles have 
two “ Horsts,” which are used alternately. They are shy birds, and leave the 
nest at the least alarm, but do not easily forsake their old home. If the eggs 
are taken early in the season, they will frequently lay again in the same nest. 
They make a very flat nest, and generally line it at the top with moss. The 
male and female are said to sit alternately, and the female is said to be 
shyer than the male at the nest. Two is the usual number of eggs; but 
frequently only one is found; in rare cases as many as three are laid. 
Eggs may be taken from the first week in March to the middle of April. 
The Sea-Eagle is more gregarious than other Hagles, and they are fre- 
quently seen to hunt together. They are by no means innocent birds, and 
often make considerable havoc in the carp-ponds. Though they do not 
refuse carrion, as many as six ducks have been found in a nest at one time, 
and they often take hares or even very young roebuck. In winter the 
number of Sea-Eagles in Pomerania is increased by migrants from the north, 
Dixon writes :—“ Within my own observation the favourite food of this 
Eagle is the stranded fish and shore-garbage on the beach of its maritime 
haunts; while further inland a dead carease or a weakly bird or animal are 
shared with the Raven and the Crows. I once remember to have seen a 
bird of this species alight on a drowned sheep lying on the shore of Loch 
