GOLDEN EAGLE AT BRJEMAR. 141 



through my spy-glass, I perceived that they were 

 hooded crows, who kept up their vain but pertina- 

 cious annoyance as long as he remained in view. 

 My surprise, however, was not greater than my 

 delight when the forester pointed out the royal 

 nest on an old Scotch fir-tree, which, with several 

 others, at some distance from each other, studded 

 the side of a hill near the base of Ben y Bourd. 

 Every ornithological authority that I was ac- 

 quainted with had invariably assigned lofty inland 

 crags and precipices to the golden eagle as the 

 situation of his eyrie ; and, indeed, the high cliff 

 behind Corriemulzie, where he used to breed, owes 

 its present title to the circumstance, but this was 

 the only instance I had ever known of the nest 

 being constructed in a tree. Such is the result of 

 preservation ; or, in other words, the absence of 

 persecution, for the services of the eagle have 

 been long appreciated and the birds themselves 

 protected by the proprietor of the forest, so that 

 it would really appear as if the establishment of 

 confidence had rendered them less anxious to 

 select an inaccessible position for their eyrie. The 

 nest itself was not above twenty feet from the 

 ground, built on one of the larger horizontal 

 branches extending from the naked trunk ; and. 



