176 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



to the nest, it is all we can do none of us weak- 

 lings to breast it. At last a sigh of relief, so 

 venemous the hurricane we view the eagle- 

 rock. That the place? why, on a line day it 

 would be child's play. 



A triangular outcrop of rock breaks the mon- 

 otony of the hill-side "scree," which, for all its 

 altitude above the glen, hardly merits the name of 

 cliff or mountain ; and the nest lies on, as it were, 

 the apex of the triangle, on a spacious, grassy 

 ledge. Eagles normally nest on grass-grown 

 ledges, and frequently in remarkably easy sites, 

 while most nests, as this, face north. A struggle 

 up the steep slope in the teeth of the storm, and we 

 stand under the apex, perhaps thirty feet below 

 the eyrie, whose rough, heathery edge is just 

 visible. Now, up that little gully on the left ; and 

 when we .are almost on a level with, but about 

 seven feet from, the nest, the sitting Eagle raises 

 her head to survey the intruders. Higher still she 

 raises herself, till she stands o.ver her treasures, 

 her vivid yellow cere, flashing brown eyes, and 

 immense, hooked bill being especially prominent. 

 Then, with ungainly action (an Eagle is ever at 

 its best when high in the heavens) she walks- 

 waddles would be more appropriate to the edge 

 of the eyrie, where, for thirty all too short, but 

 glorious moments, she stands disdainfully, ere 

 hurling herself into the abyss and dashing off down 

 wind with a hundred-mile-an-hour storm howling 



