436 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 



The Pygmy Eagle has a fine melodious voice : I might 

 really speak of it as the singing eagle ; for the varied notes 

 which it utters constitute a song, short indeed, but still not a 

 call, and more like the utterances of many of the song-birds 

 than the shrill whistle of the other raptorial birds. 



I had often heard this song of the Pygmy Eagle, but at 

 first never imagined that the pretty notes proceeded from a 

 bird of prey until I chanced to see the beautiful creature 

 perched on a dead branch with open beak and inflated throat, 

 warbling its ecstatic love-song to its sitting mate. 



I believe that I am right in thinking that, like its larger 

 relatives, it only pairs after several years, for during each 

 breeding-season I saw solitary individuals ranging carelessly 

 through the woods in pursuit of sport and plunder. 



Its nest much reminds one of that of the Spotted Eagle 

 or of the Common Buzzard, and, as with them, the structure 

 is distinctly large compared with the size of the bird. I 

 believe that only in the rarest instances does the Pygmy 

 Eagle have recourse to nest-building ; and that, wherever 

 it can do so, it turns the Spotted Eagles and Buzzards 

 out of their dwellings, as it naturally prefers their nests, 

 and that where it can find nothing better it appropriates 

 the slovenly constructed abodes of the Kites instead of 

 making a nest of its own. I have twice found and killed 

 Pygmy Eagles at nests which on both occasions were proved 

 to belong to the Common Kite. It was in the Wiener Wald 

 that this first happened. I had found a Kite's nest, had ob- 

 served the splendid pair of birds for some days, and had even 

 fired an ineffectual shot at them, when one afternoon, as I was 

 again sitting under the nest, there appeared, instead of the 

 Kite, a beautiful light-coloured Pygmy Eagle. It flew noise- 

 lessly to the tree where the nest was placed, settled on the 

 edge of the Kite's dwelling, towards the interior of which it 

 was stretching out its head, when a shot brought it down. 



