GOLDEN EAGLE. 19 
The nest, which is very large, and has no lining, according 
to some authors, but is stated by others to be lined a little 
with grass or wool, and where these cannot be procured, or 
not in sufficient plenty, with small sticks, twigs, rushes, sea- 
weed, or heather, is generally built on high and inaccessible 
rocks and precipices, or the stump of some tree projecting 
from them, or the lofty trees of the forest. It is always, 
where possible, rebuilt of the same materials—the accustomed 
eyrie being made use of for many successive years, or, most 
likely, from the most favourable locality as to food and security 
combined having been chosen, for many generations, if its 
owners are not driven from it by their only superior enemy, 
man. ‘This latter assertion must however be understood with 
certain exceptions, as in the instances recorded above. | 
The eggs, generally two in number, but in some cases three, 
are purely white, sometimes greyish white, and sometimes 
completely mottled or marbled over with lght russet brown. 
The length of the male bird is about three feet or three 
and a half, and the expanse of the wings eight feet to eight 
and a half; the female, as is the case with the rest of the 
Eagle tribe, is larger, measuring about three feet and a half 
in length, and nine feet in width: one was killed at Wark- 
worth, in Northumberland, which measured the unusual size 
of eleven feet and a quarter from tip to tip. 
In the adult, which weighs from nine to sixteen or eighteen 
pounds, the bill, (with which it sometimes makes a snapping 
noise,) is horn-colour, or deep blue; the cere, pure yellow; 
the iris, which is dark in the young bird, grows lighter as 
the bird advances in age, and ends in being of a clear orange 
brown; the crown of the head and the nape, the feathers of 
which are hackles, are sometimes bright golden red, but 
generally of a grey or hoary colour; all the rest of the body 
is obscure dark brown, more nearly approaching to black as 
the bird grows older; but when in extreme age, to which 
the Eagle is known to reach, its plumage becomes very light 
coloured, thin and worn, so much so, as to make it appear 
that the bird had ceased to moult. The tail, which is a little 
longer than the wings, and of a square shape, with the ex- 
ception of the two middle feathers, which exceed the others 
in length, and are rather pointed, is deep brown, paler on 
the base, barred with dark brown, with one broad bar ter- 
minating it. - The legs are feathered down to the toes, and 
the plumage on them is of a clearer brown than that of the 
