'Vo^-g^XVJ Cameron, The Golden Eagle in Montana. 267 



fluffy feathers about seven inches long under the tail, and I kept 

 them every year for the Duchess. They were something like 

 •ostrich feathers but finer, and her Grace always wore them in her 

 hat. Two of them were pure white, the other four had a small 

 tip of yellow near the point." 



In the recently published (1898) second edition of Mr. J. E. 

 Harting's 'Hints on the Management of Hawks' there are three 

 chapters devoted to the domestication, training, and employment 

 of eagles in Falconry which are decisive on the point at issue. 

 Suffice it to say that the Golden Eagle — described as "unerring 

 in its flight " — is highly valued, habitually trained, and success- 

 fully employed for the pursuit and capture of foxes, wolves, deer, 

 and antelope both in European and Asiatic Russia. Mr. Harting 

 establishes the fact that this eagle is the well-kno^^^l Bergut or 

 Kara Kush (Black Bird) of the Kirghiz Tartars, as hinted by 

 Prof. Newton,^ although other species are also trained for a similar 

 purpose. The epithet "Black" seems a misnomer for the mature 

 bird, but is quite appropriate to the immature plumage, as pointed 

 •out by Mr. Harting, who reminds his readers that the Golden 

 Eagle is described by Linnaeus as A. fulvus, by Gmelin as A. 

 niger, and by Pennant as the "Black Eagle." 



Mr, Harting was personally acquainted with a French sportsman, 

 Monsieur Maichin, who after much negotiation succeeded in pur- 

 chasing a trained Berkute from a Kirghiz Falconer for the price of 

 forty pounds ($200) and a gun, and employed it for hawking foxes 

 in France! Accounts of the achievements of this bird led Mr. 

 Harting to suspect it was the Imperial Eagle (A. heliaca), and, 

 being anxious to identify the species, he asked Mons. Maichin to 

 accompany him to the British Museum of Natural History and 

 there to point out his bird from among the mounted specimens in 

 the collection. Without the slightest hesitation Mons. Maichin 

 pointed to the Golden Eagle with the remark (in French): "There 

 is my eagle, but not so big as mine." The same bird was sub- 

 sequently acquired by a famous French falconer, Mons. Paul 

 Gervais, who described to Mr. Harting how it was managed and 

 floMTi. When the quarry was a fox the eagle invariably struck 



» Diet, of Birds, p. 177. 



