EAGLE 175 
the extirpation of Eagles seems to have been carried on almost 
unaffected by the prudent considerations which in the northern 
kingdom have operated so favourably for the race, and except in 
the wildest parts of Donegal, Mayo, and Kerry, Eagles in the 
sister-island are said to be birds of the past. 
Of the two British species the Erne (Icel. Qrn) or Sea-Eagle 
(by some called also the White-tailed and Cinereous Eagle), Haliaetus 
albicilla, has of late years suffered severe persecution, so that at 
the present time there is probably not a single pair left on the 
mainland of Scotland, while not fifty years ago it frequented almost 
every steep headland on our northern shores. Affecting chiefly the 
coast, mostly building its nest on sea-cliffs, it has been at the 
mercy of any adventurer, and in the absence of the protection 
which the practice of deer-stalking has afforded the other native 
species, it has been ruthlessly destroyed, and apparently to the 
benefit of nobody in particular, for the species lives in great part 
on the fish and refuse that is thrown up on the shore, though it 
not unfrequently takes living prey, such as lambs, hares, and 
rabbits. On these last, indeed, young examples mostly feed 
when they wander southward in autumn, as they yearly do, and 
appear in England. The adults are distinguished by their prevalent 
greyish-brown colour, their pale head, yellow beak, and white tail 
—characters, however, wanting in the immature, which do not 
assume the perfect plumage for some three or four years. The 
eyry is commonly placed in a high cliff or on an island in a lake— 
sometimes on the ground, at others in a tree—and consists of a 
vast mass of sticks, in the midst of which is formed a hollow lined 
with Luzula sylvatica (as first observed by the late Mr. John Wolley) 
or some similar grass, and here are laid the two or three white 
eggs. In former days the Sea-Eagle seems to Have bred in several 
parts of England—as the Lake district, and possibly even in the 
Isle of Wight and on Dartmoor. This species inhabits all the 
northern part of the Old World from Iceland to Kamchatka, 
and breeds in Europe so far to the southward as Albania. It 
is also found in Greenland; but is replaced in the New World 
by the White-headed or Bald Eagle, H. leucocephalus, a bird of 
similar habits, and the chosen emblem of the United States of 
America. In the far east of Asia occurs a still larger and finer 
Sea-Eagle, H. pelagicus, remarkable for its white thighs and upper 
wing-coverts. South-eastern Europe and India furnish a much 
smaller species, H. leucoryphus, which has its representative, 7. 
Eagle was a fitting adjunct to the grandeur of his Argyllshire mountain-scenery, 
and a good equivalent for the occasional loss of a lamb, or the slight deduction 
from the rent paid by his tenantry in consequence. How faithfully his wishes 
were carried out by his head-forester, the late Peter Robertson, the present 
writer has abundant means of knowing. 
