The Eagles of the Mountain Birch 



height. Almost at once her mate joined her, and together 

 they made their way to the snow-clad ground to the west. 



There were two eggs in the nest eggs remarkable 

 for the beauty and clearness of their markings and they 

 reposed on a lining of fresh green pine branches and 

 flowering shoots of the cranberry. 



It was late in July when I revisited the glen. The birches 

 were dark green, and many plants of Saxifraga azoides were 

 opening their yellow petals. Across the hill a herd of stags 

 moved anxiously, and a pair of kestrels soared gracefully 

 near a rocky gorge where was their nesting site. Through 

 the glass I could see one of the eaglets perched on a branch 

 immediately above the eyrie. He was engaged in preen- 

 ing his feathers, unaware of the proximity of danger; but 

 as I approached he showed uneasiness, and at length 

 jumped down into the nest. For a time he watched me, 

 his anxiety momentarily increasing, until the impulse to 

 escape mastered feelings of caution, and he threw himself 

 from the home that had sheltered him from the early days 

 of May. A fresh breeze blowing down the glen troubled 

 him somewhat, but he succeeded in reaching a point well 

 up on the hill face opposite, where he made an ungraceful 

 landing. Until now I was not aware that the eyrie con- 

 tained a second bird, but as I reached the immediate vicinity 

 of the tree the second eaglet began to crane her neck out of 

 the nest, evidently debating whether she, too, could risk a 

 voyage into space.* She was not so fully matured as the bird 

 I first noticed, nor did her flight, when at length she left the 

 eyrie, show the same power. She, too, crossed the burn and 

 came to rest on some rocky ground on the far side. 



I noticed a somewhat interesting fact as she sailed through 

 the air below me that her wings bore noticeably more pro- 

 nounced markings of white than those of the first bird. An 

 excited willow warbler flew restlessly among the branches 



* Note. When two eaglets are reared, I have always found one to be a 

 cock and the other a hen bird. 



