58 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



question, so how could we doubt the authenticity of his 

 royalty ? 



It took us a very long time before the nest was found. 

 At last the hen bird rose from it as pale as the male, and 

 with exactly similar markings, which puzzled us not a 

 little, but not for long (see infra). 



Both birds returned and flew close overhead when Ole 

 and I scrambled up the steep place below the nest. We 

 got to within 10 or 12 feet of it, but could not go 

 further. I fired at and, as I thought, slightly wounded 

 one of the birds. We came down, which was not quite so 

 easy as going up, and when we were about halfway down 

 the hen returned to the nest, sat for a little while on the 

 edge, and then hopped gently in. Deucedly rum-looking 

 ' eagle,' I thought. 



After lunch we scrambled up a steep bank and got 

 above the nest. Lars was lowered down by a rope whilst 

 I stood ready to shoot as the bird came off. But off she 

 would not come, and Lars could not get to the nest, as 

 the rope was too short. Nor, I thought, could he have 

 got to it even with a long one, as the cliff overhung very 

 much. We now rolled down big stones, which went 

 crashing down close past the nest, but the hen bird 

 would not move. 



For two hours at least we tried to get her to move, 

 lowering Lars down at three or four different places, 

 firing shots at a point of rock not far from the nest, 

 but all was useless. 



As a dernier resort Lars and Ole again went to the 

 foot, and climbed up close to the nest. Shouting and 

 stones again failed, but when at last Lars fired first a 

 shot close to the nest, then a bullet through the edge of 

 the nest, and still the bird would not come off, we came 

 to the conclusion that it was the wounded or dead bird 

 that was in the nest, though I could hardly reconcile this 



