CHAPTER XI. 



IN THE HIGHLAND HAUNTS OF EAGLES. 



To the ornithologist a Highland April presents 

 special attractions, particularly if he would see the 

 nest and eggs of the Golden Eagle. * With this 

 object in view a friend and myself, thanks to the 

 courtesy of certain landed proprietors and their 

 factors, and to the help of keepers, set off north 

 one early April. 



A keeper meets us after our all-night journey, 

 and soon a start is made for the first eyrie, distant 

 a long twelve miles, far up a lonely glen. For 

 seven miles we benefit by a fairly metalled road 

 cut through the moorland, but it is all against the 

 collar, with a fierce head- wind to boot. We skirt 

 an immense, hanging pine-wood, the home of the 

 Capercaillie ; on the heather beyond Grouse and 

 Curlew are our companions for miles ; so are the 

 red deer, never so wild now as later on. Eventu- 

 ally we leave the track, to follow a rough " pass ' 

 to the lodge, where tea, always welcome, is now 

 doubly so. Shortly a blizzard, worthy of mid- 

 winter, begins to rage : indeed, so severe does it 

 become that during the two miles from the lodge 



* Aquila chrysaetus (L.) 



