EAGLES AND EAGLE-LIKE BIRDS. 149 



bird whether on the perch or wing, but when seen 

 circling up in lofty flight, renewing the impulse from 

 time to time by a few strokes of its wings, the 

 absence of effbrt bespeaks the presence of confident 

 power, as becomes this monarch of the air. 



WHITE-TAILED EAGLE— 3 feet; tail pure white; legs 

 unfeatlieied. 



WHITE-TAILED EAGLE. — Plate 67. 3 feet. 

 General colour of upper parts brown, inclining to 

 gray on the head and neck, and some of the wing- 

 feathers having lighter edges ; flight-feathers black ; 

 tail white ; under parts brown, lighter on the throat 

 and chest ; bill and feet yellow, the legs not feathered. 

 Yoking birds : head blackish-brown ; upper and under 

 parts highly mottled, light brown on lower back ; tail 

 brown ; bill dark ; feet yellow. Principally winter 

 migrant. 



Eggs.— 2, dirty-white; 2*85 x 2-2 inches (plate 127). 



Nest. — A mass of sticks, with softer material for 

 lining, placed on sea-clifls, but sometimes on an 

 inland rock or water-surrounded island. 



Distribution. — Only in some of the islands north 

 and west of Scotland, and at rare points on the west 

 coast of Ireland. 



All but extirpated from the British Isles as a 

 breeding species, the White-Tailed Eagle — generally 

 young birds migrating — appears yearly in the coast 

 counties during the autumn and winter months. It 

 nests for tlie most part on sea-clifls, preying largely 

 upon clift'-breeding species, but varying its diet by 



