38 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



these characters have since become, we must not 

 forget that even our own Bewick, so accurate in 

 most respects, assigned specific rank to the young 

 of both the birds in question, erroneously distin- 

 guishing them from their respective adults by the 

 names of the brown or sea eagle, and the ring- 

 tailed eagle ; but truly his admirable and life-like 

 figures of the birds themselves may well induce 

 us not only to forgive, but even to rejoice in the 

 scientific error. 



Markwick, whose ' Catalogue of the Birds of 

 Sussex' appeared in the Linnean Transactions, 

 A.D. 1795, says, in reference to the golden eagle, 

 " Several years ago I saw a bird of this species 

 which was shot in this neighbourhood ;" but he 

 makes no allusion whatever to the cinereous or 

 sea eagle, and indeed the passage which T have 

 quoted above comprehends all his notice of the 

 rarer species. Now, I have taken considerable 

 pains to ascertain, if possible, one well-authenti- 

 cated instance of the death or capture of this bird 

 in Sussex: I have on more than one occasion 

 journeyed to a distant part of the county, tempted 

 by some high-sounding paragraph or plausible 

 communication, to inspect a veritable Aquila 

 chrysaetos, but in every instance I have been 

 doomed to disappointment, the so-called " golden 

 eagle " invariably turning out to be nothing more 



