12 FALCONID^. 



The Golden Eagle, though occasionally seen and some- 

 times obtained in the southern part of Great Britain, is 

 far more commonly found in Scotland. In the time of 

 Willughby, who died in 1672, it was rej)orted to breed 

 annually upon the high rocks of Snowdon. The same writer 

 describes a nest found in Derbyshire in 1668. Bewick 

 quotes from Wallis the remark, that this species formerly 

 had its eyry on the highest part of Cheviot, and Sir William 

 Jardine speaks of the precipices of Westmoreland and Cum- 

 berland having once boasted a similar distinction. " Upon 

 the wild ranges of the Scottish Border," he, writing in 1888, 

 continues, " one or two pairs used to breed, but their nest 

 has not been known for twenty years, though a straggler in 

 Avinter sometimes is yet seen amidst their defiles;" and Mr. 

 Robert Gray, whose new work on the ' Birds of the West of 

 Scotland ' contains a long and interesting account of the Golden 

 Eagle, says, that though looked upon throughout the country 

 generally as a rarity, it is, from its habit of wandering in 

 the autumn, frequently seen in the Lowlands. Indeed, the 

 Rev. T. B. Bell informed Mr. A. G. More, only a few years 

 since, that it still bred in East Galloway ; but it is not till 

 one enters the Highlands that one can confidently expect to 

 see this species. Even there the number of birds, though yet 

 considerable, is far less than by all accounts it was some years 

 ago, and it is probably still diminishing, notwithstanding the 

 protection afforded to them on some of the larger deer-forests. 

 In most of the western and northern counties of Scotland, it 

 is believed that a few nests are still tenanted by the Golden 

 Eagle, as is also the case in the Hebrides, where, according to 

 Mr. Gray, in the work before-mentioned, the birds " are 

 smaller and darker in colour than those bred on the main- 

 land." In the Orkneys it used also to breed, but, according 

 to the best authorities, not in the Shetlands. The habits of 

 this species, as observed by the late Mr. John Wolley, who 

 was very familiar with it, are recounted in much detail, from 

 his notes, in the ' Ootheca Wolleyana,' and representations 

 of two eyries in Argyllshire are there given, from drawings 

 made on the spot by Mr. Wolf. With a few exceptions 



