FROM SPAIN. 489 



more inhabited districts this shy bird naturally chooses inac- 

 cessible precipices in preference to trees as being safer. 



In the forests of the Sierra Guadarrama it is by no means 

 obliged to build on trees, for it is only a short flight to the 

 rocks of that high snowy range, while the high projections of 

 the Peiia Blanca in the midst of the woods would also afford 

 it excellent nesting-places. Nevertheless, my attendant found 

 a nest on an old fir-tree, not far from the above rock, killed 

 the female, and unfortunately missed the male. This was the 

 last " Stein " Eagle that we met with in Spain, for on the 

 heights near the Escorial no eagles came to the lure. 



I think I am right in asserting that there are more birds 

 of this species in the eastern parts of our native land than 

 in the whole Spanish peninsula. Their shyness, however, 

 increases the difficulty of finding them out and of studying 

 them in a strange country, for their habits being so erratic, 

 one only meets with them accidentally; their eyries, too, when 

 not on trees, are, as a rule, situated in such inaccessible preci- 

 pices, that the taking of them is the most difficult and 

 dangerous of tasks for the collector of eggs or young birds ; 

 even the nests of vultures are easier to get at. It is also 

 hard to acquire any definite information about this eagle 

 from the natives, as it goes by a different name in most parts 

 of Spain ; in the north the herdsmen call it " Aquila pinta." 

 In whatever part of the country it occurs, it is always the 

 most dreaded of the raptorial birds, and the peasants have far 

 more tales to tell of its depredations than of the Bearded 

 Vulture's. 



The Spanish " Stein " Eagle has the plumage of the true 

 Aquila fulva form, being very dark, with a white tail tipped 

 with black, precisely the reverse of the northern " Stein " 

 Eagle, the so-called chrysaetos, and I always found that the 

 Spanish eagles of this species which I saw in museums were 

 very uniform in colour. 



