448 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 
inhabited nest on a weak oak sapling in the middle of a 
young cover. The whole forest was, in consequence of the 
miserable sandy soil, composed of very poor trees. This, the 
only Sea-Eagle’s nest in that wood, was skilfully built to lean 
against the stem and the thickest branch of the tree, and from 
the nature of the above circumstances was so small in pro- 
portion to the size of its owner, that one could observe all the 
movements of the already well-grown eaglet in the swaying 
fabric. 
Excepting two of them, all the other Sea-Eagles’ nests that 
we saw were peopled with whole colonies of Tree-Sparrows— 
impudent birds that hopped about without caring either for 
the young or the old eagles, and a perfectly unruffled friendship 
seemed to exist between the mighty lords of the nests and the 
little parasites. Nor did these eagles appear to trouble them- 
selves in the least about other smallish birds, for I often saw 
Turtle-Doves, little Hawks, Thrushes, &c. quietly sitting on 
the nesting-trees, and close under one of them was breeding 
a Wild Duck. 
During my sojourn in those districts in the end of April 
and the beginning of May, all the Sea-Hagles’ nests contained 
young birds in various states of development. In some they 
were very large and already feathered, in others very small 
and still in down ; but even birds of the same nest differed 
greatly in size. Three taken from one eyrie were so unlike 
each other that the largest was at least twice as big as the 
smallest. We had four nests taken, only one of which con- 
tained three young birds, the others two. One eaglet we 
found squatting on the ground, under the nest, but its good 
condition showed us that even there it had been faithfully fed 
by its parents. 
I managed to collect a good many notes on the behaviour 
of the Sea-Eagles when breeding, but they were confined to 
the period when the nests already contained young birds, for 
