NINTH DAY. 149 



riverside, and then to a chain of hills running in a westerly 

 direction, and which were really the spurs and outlying 

 heights of the Fruska-Gora. We had put Homeyer ashore, 

 for he had planned a ramble through the " auen " opposite 

 Cerevic in order to study the smaller birds. 



After an hour's run we stopped, the steamer anchored, and 

 my jager and I got out and went ashore in the ' Vienna.' 

 A little marshy meadow and the main road here separated the 

 Danube from a high steep wall of earth, bordered at some 

 places by dense thorny thickets; and at one spot this cliff 

 formed a caldron-shaped ravine, where there was an Eagle- 

 OwPs nest well known to the keepers. It was situated in a 

 cleft of the earthy wall, so I walked up close under the almost 

 perpendicular cliff, and there stationed myself behind a 

 bush, while some peasants who hai come up threw stones at 

 the owl's nest. A very large female Eagle-Owl flew slowly 

 out, and sweeping round above my head with its widely 

 extended wings, was just going to return to the nest from 

 the other side, when a successful shot brought it to the 

 ground. Frightened by the noise, the male, which had been 

 sitting in a thicket, also came past ; but being too far off, I 

 unfortunately failed to kill it, and after the shots it flew 

 away along the earthy wall and disappeared in the far 

 distance. 



We now told a peasant who was standing on the top of the 

 cliff to take the nest, and with great cleverness, evidently 

 the result of much practice, this Slavonian climbed along 

 the cliff with his sandalled feet, getting a foothold in the 

 bushes and little cracks, and so managed to get to the nest 

 and bring us out a little owl, quite young, perhaps not more 

 than a few days old ; but we made him put it back into the 

 nest, as it would probably have died in a few hours. 



The Eagle-Owl I had shot was a singularly large female 

 and a splendid specimen. This was the first time that I 



