22 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



horses would not drag from me any information 

 calculated to hasten the extermination of such a 

 fine bird. 



Many immature specimens have in past years 

 been trapped and shot in the eastern counties of 

 England, whilst on their way between their 

 summer and winter quarters, and invariably re- 

 ported in the newspapers as Golden Eagles. A 

 friend living in the Hebrides tells me that adult 

 birds are often destroyed on the mainland of 

 Scotland by gamekeepers, unknown to their em- 

 ployers, a fact for which I can vouch from personal 

 experience. The mischief caused by killing one 

 of a pair of old Sea Eagles is greater than that 

 which would accrue to almost any other bird of 

 prey, because of the difficulty the remaining in- 

 dividual experiences in the finding of a fresh mate. 

 As an illustration of this, something happened to 

 one of a pair of birds tenanting an old eyrie in the 

 Shetlands in 1898, and the remaining specimen 

 not only hung about the site by itself all the 

 rest of the season, but turned up again during 

 the spring of 1899, still single. 



Our illustration represents the cliff, on an over- 

 hung ledge of which the eyrie was situated. At 

 the time of our visit the solitary bird was sitting 

 on it, and gave us a splendid sight by flying 

 leisurely away out to sea and back again over our 

 heads, with the morning sunshine full on it, and 

 a small crowd of unheeded gulls in pursuit. My 

 brother quickly descended by the aid of ropes, but 

 was deeply disappointed to find the nest empty, 

 save for a number of Sea Eagle's feathers. The 

 eyrie was by no means a large one, and consisted 

 simply of a few sticks and a liberal quantity of 

 moss and dead grass and wool. 



