ON ORNITHOLOGY. 439 



lake, it was caught in a trap near Ebensee, but was so slightly 

 injured that it was quite fit to be an ornament of the Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens at Schonbrunn. 



The Sea-Eagle is not, 011 the whole,'very critical in its 

 choice of winter-quarters. It prefers large rivers and streams, 

 and also selects districts where lakes and ponds will provide 

 it with food, remaining close to them until they are quite 

 frozen ; but from that moment it may be seen away in the 

 interior of the plains, far from all water. Fish certainly form 

 its chief diet ; but in winter, as soon as these fail, it pursues 

 all sorts of game, from the doe of the Roe Deer down to the 

 smallest vertebrate animal. It is indeed so fond of hares and 

 rabbits that it even forsakes the waters and spends a long 

 time in localities where these animals abound. 



Most of the Sea-Eagles build their nests on the shores of 

 the northern seas, in Norway, Sweden, on the coasts of the 

 German Ocean and the Baltic, in the great forests of Russia 

 and Northern Germany, and in Mecklenburg, especially on 

 the island of Riigen, which is one of their well-known 

 breeding-places. It has also several favourite resorts along 

 the large rivers of Southern Russia near the Black Sea, but 

 never nests in Central Europe proper. The only spots in our 

 own country where it now breeds are situated in Southern 

 Hungary, the Banat, and on the Danube down to the Servian 

 frontier. 



In spring the Sea-Eagles are of course busy at their nests, 

 and until the young are fully fledged do not begin their 

 travels, which at first only extend over a limited area in the 

 neighbourhood of their breeding-places, the greater journeys 

 commencing towards the middle of October, and in mild 

 autumns even later. 



Many of these eagles naturally remain on the sea-coasts, 

 chiefly on those of the northern waters, but numbers of 

 them come down into the interior of Europe, and there 



