CHAPTER II 



THE EAGLES OF THE MOUNTAIN BIRCH 



IN a small glen, which lies, remote and secluded, in the 

 keeping of the great hills, a pair of eagles have their home. 

 Not during the whole year does the glen know them; it 

 is only in the season of their nesting that they descend 

 from the snow-filled corries and wind-swept plateaux that 

 lie to the west of the glen. 



Much time passes by during the nesting of the hill 

 eagle. With smaller members of the bird tribe the eggs 

 are laid, and the family become fully matured within the 

 space of a month, but with the eagle the case is different. 

 For six weeks she must needs cover her eggs before her 

 young see the light of day, and even then, when the first 

 part of her duties is over, her eaglets must be tended for 

 more than two months before they are sufficiently strong 

 to take their first flight from the eyrie. 



Veteran, storm-scarred birches clothe the small glen. 

 It is late indeed before these trees feel the impulse of life. 

 When spring has already come to the plains, and the trees 

 of the low country have put forth their leaves of filmy green, 

 these birches still stand in their nakedness as they did in 

 the first month of the year. In the oldest of these birches 

 the eagles have their home. 



On May 5 of a certain year I made my way through the 

 glen. The hills held many a snow wreath in their corries, 

 and the mountain loch was ruffled by a strong wind out of 

 the south-west. The parent eagle was brooding on her great 

 eyrie; so close, indeed, did she sit, that it was not until I 

 was directly under the tree that she moved off, soaring 

 out over the glen, and rising, as she circled, to a great 



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