180 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



a steadier on that birch projecting from the cliff- 

 edge, one step to the left and you are on the big 

 ledge by it. This nest is an old favourite obviously 

 and is quite six feet across, though it is narrower 

 at the top. The "egg-cup" is 16 in. by 13 in. 

 in diameter by 3^ in. in depth. Mainly fashioned 

 of heather, it also shows some big birch branches, 

 and is finished off with masses of Luzula sylvatica 

 (roots and all) and a fragment of withered bracken. 

 Some snowy tufts of down not very large 

 considering their owner cling to the sticks and 

 ground adjoining. The two eggs (the almost 

 invariable clutch) are of good size and decidedly 

 rotund. One resembles in colour a very faded 

 Peregrine's egg, the other is streaked with brown 

 and purplish-red on a creamy ground. This gully 

 is clearly a favoured haunt (" den ' the keeper 

 call it), since hard-by, both in equally simple spots, 

 are other two old eyries. 



A third eyrie, visited the following day, despite 

 its renovation, is eggless, though for all that a 

 pair of Eagles are seen in its vicinity. But then 

 Eagles, like Buzzards, which in many ways they 

 resemble, patch up all their alternative sites 

 annually ; like Buzzards, they delight in orna- 

 menting their dwellings with green wood-rush, 

 and foliage, though both traits are most marked 

 with the meaner species. This nest reposes on a 

 huge grassy platform bisecting an otherwise sheer 

 and overhanging outcrop of grey rock about a 



