GOLDEN EAGLE, | 25 
exploits. The site chosen for the nest-pile too is almost invari- 
ably one which commands a wide, unhindered look-out; partly 
it is likely, under the influence of the strong instinct of vigilance 
in self-preservation, partly also for the advantages offered by 
such a dwelling-place towards the detection of a distant prey. 
The number of eggs deposited is usually two, sometimes 
three. They are commonly of a dull whitish ground, mottled 
or marbled nearly or quite all over with a sort of rusty hue. 
The young ones, while yet too young to leave the nest, are 
amply catered for by their parents, Lists are sometimes given 
of the spoils, feathered and four-footed, found in what may be 
styled the Eagle’s larder—Black Game, Moor Game, Partridges, 
Hares, Rabbits, Lambs, young Roes, and so on, to an amount that 
would seem hardly credible to one not conversant with the Hagle’s 
power of vision and mighty sweep of wing. Indeed there is a 
story told of a man in Ireland who got a fair provision for his 
family in a season of scarcity by no other effort than was requisite 
in plundering an Eagle’s nest of the food brought in by the 
parent birds for their young. He is said also to have prolonged 
the season of supply by preventing the young ones from flying, 
by clipping their wings as the feathers grew. Instances have 
been known where the prey seized was human. Professor 
Wilson tells a touching story, in a touching way, of an incident 
of the kind, in which the’ infant was seized as it lay and slept 
where its mother had placed it, while herself busy not far off in 
the harvest field, and carried off by the strong bird to its 
eyry. The poor mother, frantic with her loss, blind to every- 
thing but the thought and effort for the recovery of her babe, 
safely scaled the precipice, high up on which the nest was 
placed; though no man, however skilful and expert as a 
cragsman, had ever dared attempt the ascent; found her babe 
