42 FALCONID^. 
mals and birds on the rock from being destroyed ; so I had to 
eat " humble pie " and give the affair up as a bad business. 
The following notes as to the time of nesting may be interest- 
ing. Sergeant Munro^ of the Royal Artillery, in charge of 
the signal-station, assisted me with two or three of the dates 
during my absence from the Rock. 
In 1869, the eagles nested on the lower site, about 300 feet 
from the base of the Rock, which here ends on the steep sand 
slope south of the village of Catalan Bay. 
In 1870 they used the upper nest, and two eggs were laid; the 
birds were sitting on the 20th of February; onlyone was hatched. 
In 1871 the nest of 1869 was repaired, the birds beginning 
to renew it about Christmas 1870; two eggs were laid by the 
6th of February, both of which proved fertile. 
In 1872 the upper nest, that of 1870, was the favoured one : 
the repairs began on the 20th of December, 1871 ; the first of 
the two eggs laid was deposited on the 5th of February. On 
the 16th of March, both were hatched, making forty days 
occupied in incubation. Both birds sometimes sit at the same 
time ; but usually they relieve one another. They continu- 
ally turn the eggs over with their bills ; and sometimes, w^hen 
taken, the eggs bear marks of this in the shape of scratches. 
The upper part of these nests was always entirely rebuilt with 
fresh green olive-boughs, lined with smaller twigs of the same. 
Some of the boughs accidentally dropped I picked up at the 
foot of the Rock, gnawed through as if by rats. It must have 
cost the Eagles much time and trouble to procure them, as 
olive is very hard and tough wood. 
In 1873 I was not at Gibraltar; but on my return in 1874, 
on the 24th of February, I found that they had built in a fresh 
situation near the other sites, and that two unspotted bluish 
white eggs, rather smaller than the usual type, had been taken 
the day previously by the aid of the same men whom I had 
employed in 1870. This nest was hid from view of the 
signal- station by a projection of the rock, and was easily ob- 
tained, the cliff there being less than half the height of that 
where the nest of 1870 is placed. In company with the 
officers who obtained these eggs, we took another nest of 
