6]2 NOTES FROM THE 



between Vienna and Fischamend there are only two places to 

 which all these eagles regularly repair every evening. One is 

 situated on a small arm of the river ; the other on the edge 

 of a young cover, and even within these narrow limits there 

 are certain favourite trees. 



When a bird of this kind is seen flying about in the 

 evening, look-outs must be stationed at spots which command 

 a good view, for after its final hunt the Sea-Eagle circles 

 for some time high aloft, and then suddenly contracting 

 its wings, shoots down to its night-quarters like an arrow. 

 There it flaps from tree to tree until darkness comes on, when 

 it at last goes to roost on a suitable branch. 



In January and February the eagles come to their roosting- 

 places by four o'clock, and, having come, they stay. For 

 about a week past, however, they have been very restless ; and 

 this I attribute to the approach of the breeding-season, as 

 during the daytime I have of late seen them going through 

 the same beautiful aerial evolutions that I have so often 

 observed when in the neighbourhood of their nests. 



Some days ago, for example, one of the keepers saw three 

 of them settle on one tree, and there they all sat until it 

 began to get quite dark ; but when I got to the place at 

 night they were no longer there, two having gone off 

 altogether, while the third was roosting on another silver 

 poplar about fifty paces away. 



In the course of last week I bagged three Sea-Eagles ; all 

 at night. On the first occasion I found two very old ones, 

 evidently a pair, sitting on the same tree : on the second a 

 rather dark and much younger bird alone ; the third time a 

 somewhat older individual, which was one of the most in- 

 teresting of the many specimens that have passed through my 

 hands, for it was just in the transition stage from the dark 

 plumage of the immature, to that of the fully adult bird. Its 

 beak was still dark with a few yellow spots, and its plumage 



