oe ERNE. 
(though some say three, and that the third is always an addled 
one,) are white, yellowish white, or yellowish brown, and some 
are wholly covered with light red spots, while others have 
only the large end dotted over. One of these birds has been 
known to lay an egg after having been in confinement for 
more than twenty years. The young are hatched about the 
beginning of June, and fully fledged about the middle of August. 
The Erne varies much both in size and in colour, which 
latter becomes more cinereous as the bird advances in age, and 
this was the cause of the one species, in the different stages 
of its plumage, having been imagined to be two distinct ones. 
One has been killed in Sutherlandshire, entirely of a silvery 
white hue, without any admixture of brown, and another of 
the lke appearance was seen at the same time in company 
with it. A very curious variety in the Zoological Society’s 
Collection is thus described by Meyer, in his ‘Illustrations of 
British Birds,’ ‘No painting can fitly represent the delicate 
and beautiful colour of this bird. When its feathers are 
rufiled, as may be frequently observed, at the pleasure of the 
creature, a delicate azure blue tint is seen to pervade the 
basal part of the feathers, which, appearing through the whole 
transparent texture, imparts to its plumage the singular tint 
it displays. It is observable that the beak of this individual 
is rather less in depth at the base than is usual in this species, 
and the iris yellowish white.’ 
It is also to be remarked that the differences in size between 
the male and the female, is not nearly so great as is usual in 
the case of the other Eagles, and so conspicuously so in the 
species next described, and that they are also very similar in 
general appearance. The following is the description of the 
adult bird:—Weight, about eight or nine pounds; length, about 
three feet. Bill, dark straw-colour (at two years old, increasing 
in intensity of colour as the bird grows older,) and with a 
bluish skin, slightly bristled over, extending from its base to 
the eyes; cere, yellow; iris, bright yellow, and remarkably 
beautiful and expressive. The feathers underneath the lower 
bill are bristly; crown of the head and neck, pale greyish 
brown, the ijeathers being hackles; breast and back, dark 
brown. The wings, when closed, reach the end of the tail, 
the’ fourth and fifth quill feathers being the longest: their 
expanse is about six feet and a half; secondaries, brown, 
partly tinged with grey. The tail, which is rather short and 
rounded, and consists of twelve broad feathers, has a small 
