266 EEMINISCEK'CES OF A SPOSTSMAX. 



feathers. This species is frequent in Scotland, where 

 it is called the black eagle, from the dark colour of its 

 plumage. It is very destructive to deer, which it will 

 seize between the horns, and by incessantly beating it 

 about the eyes with its wings, soon makes a prey of the 

 harassed animal. The eagles of the Isle of Rum have 

 nearly extirpated the stags that used to abound there. 

 They generally build in the clefts of rocks near the 

 deer forests, and make great havoc among them, the 

 white hares and ptarmagans. Willoughby gives the 

 following curious account of the nest of this species : — 

 "In 1668, in the woodlands near the river Darwent, in 

 the peak of Derbyshire, was found an eagle's nest, 

 made of great sticks, resting one end on the end of a 

 rock, the other on two birch trees, upon which was a 

 layer of rushes, and over them q, layer of heath ; and 

 upon the heath rushes again, upon which lay a 

 young one and an addled egg, and by them a lamb, a 

 hare, and three heath poults. The nest was about two 

 yards square, and had no hollow in it." The following 

 account of the capture of four young of this species, 

 when about three months old is given by Mr. Bullock. 



" On the 10th of June 1812, they were seen in their 

 eyrie, on the tremendous cliff called the west crags in 

 the Isle of Hay (one of the Orkneys), the towering 

 rocks of which rise to the perpendicular height of 1200 

 feet from the sea. About one-third down this awful 

 abyss a slender pointed rock projected from the cliff, 

 like the pinnacle of a Grothic building; on the extremity 

 of this is a hollow, scarcely of sufficient size for the 

 purpose for which these birds had fixed on it, that is, as 

 a place of security for rearing their young ; the situation 

 was such as almost to defy the power of man to molest 



