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that to so great an extent, that Norwegian naturalists 

 have often mistaken the old birds for a distinct species. 

 The last authenticated instance of a golden eagle 

 carrying off a child took place in Thelemarken towards 

 the end of the last century. A poor Norwegian pea- 

 sant woman was washing her clothes near the door of 

 her cottage, her infant, a fine boy, being in a cradle 

 by her side, when an eagle stooped, and carried off the 

 child to its nest in an inaccessible cliff at no great 

 distance. Some days afterwards a Norwegian sailor, 

 who happened to visit the place, scaled the cliff, but 

 found nothing more than the bare bones of the child 

 in the eagle's nest. 



The cinereous or sea-eagle (Aquila albicilla) may 

 be said to have its home on the north-west coast of 

 Norway. It is frequently seen in the neighbourhood 

 of Bergen, Throndjem, and Christiansund ; sometimes 

 it may be seen hovering over extensive inland lakes 

 and large rivers at no great distance from the sea- 

 coast. A Norwegian clergyman oncS^shot a fine young 

 bird of this species in Saeterdalen, more than fifty 

 miles inland, which had a fresh mackerel in its stomach. 

 Some years since a sea-eagle's nest was discovered by 

 an English traveller on the coast of Finmark ; the 

 peasants in the neighbourhood declared that the same 

 eyrie had been used by eagles for forty consecutive 

 years. The eagles had carried off several lambs and 

 kids the preceding summer, as food for their young. 

 The nest was . formed of twigs of the birch and moun- 

 tain-ash, and was lined with hay and feathers, among 

 which were some of the eider duck ; a half-fledged 

 eaglet was found in the nest. 



The sea-eagle feeds almost entirely on fish, although 



