12 FALCONID^. 



Tlie Golden Eagle makes a flattened platform nest, or 

 rather a collection of strong sticks, on tlie high and most 

 inaccessible part of rocks, and requiring a space of several 

 feet square of surface. The female bird, which is consider- 

 ably larger than the male, lays two, and sometimes three 

 eggs, towards the end of the month of March or the begin- 

 ning of April. If the eggs are removed, it is said that the 

 bird does not lay any more that season. The egg is about 

 three inches long by two inches and five lines broad, of a 

 dirty white colour, slightly mottled nearly all over Avitli pale 

 reddish brown. An egg of this bird in the collection at the 

 British Museum is so marked ; and a representation of the 

 egg, in the excellent work of my friend Mr. W. C. Hewitson 

 on the Eggs of British Birds, is very correctly drawn and 

 coloured. Incubation with the Golden Eagle, according to 

 Mr. Mudie, lasts thirty days, and the young Eaglets are at 

 first covered with greyish white down. They are watched, 

 defended, and plentifully supplied with food by the parent 

 birds. Smith, in his History of Kerry, relates that a poor 

 man in that county got a comfortable subsistence for his 

 family during a summer of famine out of an Eagle's nest, 

 by robbing the Eaglets of the food the old ones brought, 

 Avhose attendance he protracted beyond the natural time by 

 clipping the wings, and thus retarding the flight of the 

 young birds. 



Eagles are said to be very long-lived ; one that died at 

 Vienna was stated to have lived in confinement one hundred 

 and four years. Their voice is sharp and loud, consisting 

 generally of two notes, repeated many times in succession. 

 Two birds of this species kept by Mr. Selby " appeared 

 untameable in disposition, their fierceness remaining undi- 

 minished through years of confinement. They did not ex- 

 hibit any partiality even for the person who constantly 



