GOLDEN EAGLE. 97 
Northumberland,’ published in 1769, that the Golden Eagle bred on the 
highest and steepest part of Cheviot ; and Sir William Jardine, writing in 
1838, mentions the cliffs of Westmoreland and Cumberland as once its 
home. The Golden Eagle’s only stronghold in our islands now is the 
western and northern counties of Scotland and throughout the Hebrides— 
and also in the wildest parts of Ireland, although the bird of late years 
appears to have decreased in numbers there. It also formerly bred in the 
Orkneys, but, according to the best authorities, has not been known to do 
so in the Shetlands. Outside the British Islands the Golden Eagle has 
a very wide and extensive range. With the exception of Iceland, it 
breeds throughout the greater part of the Palearctic Region, from 
Scandinavia to North Africa, and from Spain across Europe and Asia * 
(except the extreme north, but as far south as the Himalayas), to Dauria 
and China, being migratory in the extreme limits of its northern range. In 
the Nearctic Region, with the exception of Greenland, it is found from the 
temperate to the Arctic regions, chiefly confined to the mountainous 
districts, but is nowhere numerous. 
It is not till the vast solitudes of the Scottish Highlands are reached 
that the Golden Eagle may with any confidence be expected to be seen. 
Once, however, among the wild grand scenery there, and the imagination 
seems to create an eagle in every wild glen and on every rocky pinnacle. 
Glens and mountains are on every side of you—here a deer-forest or a 
birch coppice—there a rocky glen or a broad stretch of heathery waste, 
over which the Plovers and the Redshanks rising, scream at your intru- 
sion. On every side the mountains rear their hoary peaks ; and the clouds 
hang densely round them, hiding their summits, and giving them a truly 
wild and weird appearance. The wild scenery is enlivened and varied 
by a mountain-loch, with its hilly banks clothed in verdure to the water’s 
edge. Streams roll down from the mountains in mad career ; over huge 
rocky moss-grown boulders they fall and plunge, or flow slowly through 
still dark pools, where trout and salmon sport and birch trees hang so 
gracefully. Or, again, the scenery becomes desolate and dreary—grey 
rocks, stupendous hills, romantic glens and moors, in all their wild 
primeval seclusion, where the Eagle’s barking cry and the hoarse 
croaks of the Raven and Hoodie are the only signs of life. Such haunts 
as these are the lordly Eagle’s home, his hunting-grounds, his regal fast- 
ness ; and hither you must repair if you wish to make his acquaintance. But 
the Golden Eagle is no common bird, and is often “not at home.” Days 
and weeks may pass when not an Eagle is to be seen ; for, except in the 
breeding-season, the bird is a thorough wanderer, and explores vast tracts 
of country in search of prey. It is also when not engaged with nesting- 
* Dybowski obtained it near Lake Baikal, and Radde obtained it in the Amoor, 
VOL, I. H 
