78 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
name, for it is no eagle; and I quite agree with my 
friend Brehm that, despite all the earlier naturalists, it 
must be separated from the eagle group, and it seems to 
me that the name of “ Snake-Buzzard,” 
apphed to it by 
him, is far more correct. 
The patient reader will, with perfect justice, smile at my 
here entering the lists against the first of all ornithologists ; 
but why not try ? 
My idea is that one should not be in such a hurry to place 
the “Schlangen Alder”* (1 retain the name in this work, 
because it is the only one universally known) in the Buzzard 
group as Brehm is; and I think that it would be much more 
to the point to separate it from the Buzzards as well as from 
the Eagles, and to assign to it a special place just before the 
former. In Hurope this bird is the only representative 
of its kind ; but it may perhaps be possible to find, among 
the numerous and not so thoroughly known raptorial birds 
of the other quarters of the globe, one or two which have 
similar characteristics and may be placed in the same genus 
as the Short-toed Eagle. 
But enough of this gruesome game! No longer will I 
tax my reader’s patience with theoretical ‘controversies, but 
hasten back to the greenwood under the eagle’s nest. 
Laden with my splendid spoil I returned to the cart, 
in order to pay my first visit to the Black Storks in a 
neighbouring part of the forest, also intersected with rides. 
When the eagle had been packed among hay and _ straw 
in the high, long, and very uncomfortable country cart, 
we set off, and in a few minutes again left our vehicle and 
pushed inte the wood. 
Among the low saplings rose some tall isolated and 
excessively old trees, all of them oaks. On one of these 
stood the simple and very small nest of a Black Stork. 
* Snake-LKaele. 
