86 A VANISHING BIRD 



hare or sickly lamb ; but past experience hardly 

 bids us hope for this. 



The following notes on the white-tailed eagle 

 are taken from a hitherto unpublished MS. of 

 the late Edward R. Alston, F.L.S., secretary of 

 the Linnean Society, and written about thirty 

 years ago : 



' This species seems now to be extinct in the 

 Glencoe district. The well-known nest in a 

 rowan tree on Loch Ba has not been used for 

 several years. First the female was poisoned, 

 the male found another mate, but both met 

 with the same doom. Mr. Peter Robertson, 

 head keeper at the Black Mount, told me in 

 1870 that he well remembered when there were 

 several eyries annually in and about that forest. 

 All of these were in trees except one on a low 

 rocky island, on Loch Tulla, which might be 

 said to be on the ground. He himself never 

 knew this bird to build on a cliff, though he 

 knew that they did so on the coast. An old 

 forester, however, had told him that more than 

 fifty years ago there used to be an eyrie on 

 the Monich dhu, " Black rock," which over- 

 hangs Loch Triachatan in Glencoe. Most of 

 these that Robertson remembered were placed 

 on Scotch firs ; one was within 200 yards of 

 an eyrie of the golden eagle. Halliday in- 



