LESSER SPOTTED EAGLE. 109 
introduce me to the Red-breasted Flycatcher. In the course of our walk in 
the forest we started a Spotted Eagle from her nest about eighty feet 
from the ground in a beech tree. She flew slowly off, and alighted on 
the summit of a pine tree not far away, where we watched her for some 
time. 
On the following day, in a swampy forest between Stolp and the sea, we 
took another nest of the Spotted Eagle. This time it was in a grand old 
oak in a beech-forest interspersed with a few oaks and birches. It was 
about sixty feet from the ground. The bird was on; and as I was anxious 
to obtain a specimen, we stationed ourselves round the tree. Tapping on 
the trunk of the tree and shouting failed to alarm her; so we fired a 
shot, when she flew off rather rapidly and fell to the forester’s gun. She 
proved to be a fully adult female. The nest was large, two feet in 
diameter, and very flat. The final lining was fresh green grass. It con- 
tained two eggs, one of which was chipped. 
A couple of hundred yards off was last year’s “ Horst,’’? somewhat the 
worse for a year’s wind and rain. It was built in the fork of a birch tree 
where five branches sprung from the main stem, about forty-five feet from 
the ground. 
On the 11th Dr. Holland showed me two nests of the Spotted Eagle in 
another forest, from which he had obtained the eggs. Both were in beech 
trees, one about thirty-five and the other about sixty feet from the ground. 
He told me that he had seen nests of this bird in Scotch fir trees. 
The nest has once been found on the ground (‘ Journ. fiir Orn.’ 1855, 
p- 510). The male is said occasionally to relieve the female in the duties 
of incubation. 
Although the Spotted Eagle looks very aquiline, sailing majestically in 
grand sweeps over the forest, its habits appear to be very much like those 
of the Buzzard. It rarely pursues its prey on the wing. Now and then 
it may surprise a small bird on the ground; but its principal food is frogs. 
It is said to run after lizards and snakes, to eat grasshoppers and other 
insects, the remains of which have been found in the pellets cast up by the 
young birds, and even not to disdain carrion. 
The time to obtain fresh eggs is the first half of May; and the number 
in each nest is almost invariably two. Now and then one only is laid; 
and instances are on record of three eggs having been found in one nest ; 
but these are extremely rare. The female is said to sit three weeks. The 
eggs vary considerably both in size and colour, and are best described as 
miniatures of those of the Golden Eagle. The surface is dull and some- 
what rough, and both ends are very nearly alike in shape. They vary in 
size from 2°65 by 2°15 inch to 2°3 by 20 inch. The ground-colour is a more 
or less creamy white. The two eggs figured were collected by Dr. Kriiper 
in Macedonia, and are fair average examples. Some are much handsomer, 
