TENTH DAY. 163 



neighbours imaginable : no game-laws or sporting-rules are 

 sacred to them, nor have they the slightest consideration for 

 the adjoining proprietors. 



We now drove along the crest of the mountain for a good 

 half-hour more, the road being in some places so narrow that 

 it fell away in steep slopes on either hand, and then we halted 

 where the ridge of another chain of hills branched off obliquely 

 towards the south. As we were out of the forester's domains 

 he did not know what sort of a nest there was at this place, 

 but the charming jagers of the monastery informed us that 

 a large eagle with a bare head was here nesting on an oak 

 tree. I naturally thought that we were going to encounter a 

 Cinereous Vulture, especially as we had recently seen a pair 

 of these birds flying swiftly along the side of the valley, and 

 had also observed some others cruising about the outskirts of 

 the mountains early in the morning. 



Accompanied by the forester, I hastened along a wretched 

 road leading down to the plains of the Save, which passed just 

 under the tree on which the nest was situated, and I was still 

 a few hundred yards away when I caught sight of it on the 

 dead branches at the top of a huge oak. Neither its size nor 

 its general construction led me to think that it was inhabited 

 by a Cinereous Vulture; and I was right, for a dark-coloured 

 eagle suddenly dashed out of it towards the valley, and 

 the forester thought at the first glance that it was a " Stein " 

 Eagle. 



I now sent my attendant back to the trap, and crouched 

 down near the nest, hidden by the stem of the tree ; but 

 hardly had I loaded my gun and got ready a little screen of 

 branches, prepared for a long wait, when I saw a large shadow 

 on the ground, and looking up as well as the glare of the sun 

 would allow me, I noticed the great form of the eagle as it 

 disappeared among the branches of the tree. I also soon heard 

 the folding of its wings and the bustle it made inside its 



M2 



