24 THE HOME-LIFE OF 



nest and then turned her attention to the rabbit, which 

 had been there when I arrived. She tore its two hind 

 legs apart without the slightest difficulty, and proceeded 

 to devour one of them, having separated it into two 

 sections at the middle joint. She swallowed the bones 

 of this leg and carried away the other with her, pre- 

 sumably to devour it elsewhere. The Eaglet had 

 meanwhile been watching her enviously and crying 

 piteously for food, but she either considered rabbit 

 too tough for him or thought him unduly greedy, 

 refusing to feed him till the proper hour. It is 

 worth noting that she always seemed unwilling 

 to give the youngster rabbit if grouse was available, 

 and never gave him portions of the flesh of four- 

 footed animals until he was able to tear the prey 

 for himself, offering him only titbits from the liver, 

 though at this stage she fed him freely with the flesh 

 of grouse. 



At 1.30 the cock dropped in (Plate 11), and the photo- 

 graph which I then obtained shows him in an attitude 

 extremely characteristic of anger among the larger 

 birds of prey. The cause of his furious demeanour was 

 at the time a mystery, but before leaving the eyrie I 

 discovered that a tuft of heather had fallen from the 

 roof of my hiding-place and that a small portion of the 

 canvas had been exposed. This, though now stained 

 and weather-beaten, had doubtless attracted his attention, 

 and he resented it accordingly. However, he soon came 

 to the conclusion that it was harmless, and carefully 

 inspected the Eaglet from every point of view, finally 

 standing for some time on a small rock hardly two feet 

 from the lens. At length he took his departure, and 

 in five minutes the female appeared with another 

 grouse and gave the Eaglet a few titbits from its 

 liver (Plate 12), wolfing the entrails herself with great 

 gusto. She then retired, leaving the two grouse for the 

 evening feed. 



