ERNE 



THE WHITE-TAILED EAGLE SEA EAGLE. 



PLATE III. 



Haliaetus albicilla^ . . . LINNAEUS. 



Fako albirilla, .... MONTAGU. GMELIN. 



Aquila albicilla, .... JENYNS. 



THE nest of the Erne is a large structure, or rather 

 superstructure, the original one being built upon year 

 after year. It is as much as five feet wide, and very flat, 

 having only a slight hollow in the middle, and is a mass of 

 sticks, heather, or sea-weed, as the case may be. These 

 rough materials are arranged in as rough a manner, being 

 slovenly put together, and lined with any such soft ones as 

 the architects may be able to procure. It is placed on some 

 rocky precipice, or in the hollow of a crag overhanging the 

 sea, or else in some inland natural fortress, such as an island 

 in the centre of a mountain lake, or sometimes on a rock at 

 the edge of one, whence the Erne 



"from her cairn on high 



Casts on the rout her wondering eye." 



It is also built on trees, even low ones, and only a few feet 

 up. The nests in Pomerania are described by Mr. Seebohm 

 as enormous structures six or eight feet in width, placed on 

 the top of a pine or on the horizontal branch of an oak or 



