20 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
since December of the past year, when I had killed my last 
“Stein”? Hagle, I had not seen a single bird of this kind in 
the open, but only in the Zoological Gardens of London, 
Dublin, and Berlin, where I made pilgrimages, out of the 
suffocating foggy town air, to see these noble creatures, and 
to refresh myself after the turmoil of the world by recalling 
the happiest of my sporting reminiscences. 
The long-suffering reader must not be too indignant at 
such romantic digressions, for such dangers may always be 
expected when I touch on the subject of the pursuit of eagles. 
How willingly would I even then have ignored the whole 
plan of our journey, and have quietly waited under the 
herons’ nests to see whether the eagle would not come back, 
to make a closer inspection of their contents, but a glance at 
my watch compelled me to return to the rest of the party. 
We now took the slain Cormorants with us and walked 
quickly homewards. The clouds had cleared off again, and 
the woods, refreshed by the rain, were still more splendidly 
green and fragrant, while the birds were warbling their 
songs, and many species flew past, which had to be entered 
in our note-books. We also heard the clear call of the 
Pheasant sounding among the bushes, and a poor Wryneck 
fell a victim to Homeyer’s zeal in the interests of science. 
As we were returning to the heronry we found Brehm 
leaning against a tree. He had just finished his observations, 
filled many blank pages in his note-book, and had also brought 
with him some specimens for measuring and skinning. 
While walking through the heronry with our guns at the 
ready, a Night-Heron suddenly rose in front of me, and a 
lucky shot brought it down. On nearing the place where 
our boat lay by the bank, my brother-in-law and I paid 
another visit to the kite’s nest; but again its churlish pro- 
prietor quitted it too soon, and circled over the Danube in a 
great state of alarm. I wanted to have a close look at the 
