GOLDEN EAGLE. 101 
mountains or overlooking a loch, but always in a commanding situ- 
ation, and with a broad uninterrupted view of the surrounding country. 
The selected rock is usually a rugged one, partly a broken bank clothed 
with grass and ferns, and partly a precipitous cliff, the place in which the 
eyrie is made usually being sheltered by the overhanging rock. But the 
Golden Eagle does not always select an inland site, and occasionally 
breeds on maritime cliffs. An account of an eyrie in such a situation 
will doubtless prove interesting ; for it certainly is the exception, not the 
rule, to find the bird breeding there. Dixon on this occasion made the 
following notes :—“ One of the principal objects of my visit to the Western 
Isles in the early summer months of 1881 was for the purpose of trying to 
make myself acquainted with the Golden Eagle, his habits and his nest, in 
his own wild mountain solitudes. But the Golden Eagle is now a scarce 
bird. Time was when almost all the wild rugged cliffs possessed their pair 
of birds; but now, alas! the Golden Eagle’s race is well nigh run in 
Britain, and one is bound to confess that, if protection is not soon vouch- 
safed to this companion of the wild Highland scenery, it will soon cease to 
be. I chose the island of Skye for my researches ; and for the first week 
of my visit there the chances of making acquaintance with the bird seemed 
small. All the keepers and the shepherds I questioned on the subject gave 
me disheartening reports—one keeper having shot one of these noble birds 
the previous winter, and none had been seen on his land since ; another had 
trapped the bird some few seasons ago, but said it had become very scarce ; 
while a third proudly showed me the feet and heads of several Golden Eagles 
nailed to his dog-kennels! All agreed, however, that in this part of Skye 
(Portree) the Eagle was not to be met with; and I began to despair. Was the 
lordly Golden Eagle to be found or not? Contemporary writers of quite 
recent date speak of finding the bird here ; but has the unwarranted perse- 
eution already done its work and banished him from the glens and mountains 
of Skye for ever? Such were my thoughts, when one evening I had the rare 
fortune to meet with a gentleman sheep-farmer of Skye, who informed me 
that there was a Golden Eagle’s eyrie on his farm, and that one of his 
shepherds trapped the female bird that very day, and that he was taking 
it with him to have it preserved in Inverness. No time was to be 
lost, and I made a few hasty arrangements for an early start in the 
morning to the place, some four and twenty miles away on the west 
coast of Skye. 
“ After providing myself with the assistance of three shepherds and a 
long coil of rope, we started forth to harry Aquila’s lordly castle. A four- 
miles tramp over the mountains in the bracing morning air served to 
nerve me for the task I had before me. The sun was just rising over the 
distant hills; a raven was croaking dismally from the ‘Storr ;’ a pair of 
Peregrines were sailing in graceful circles high in air above; and the 
