WHITE-TAILED EAGLE 



the wild, eager hunter, ready for a mighty battle of wings. What 

 a grand thing it must have been to watch this great feathered 

 warrior leave his perch and go forth to give battle to the Osprey, 

 while the latter was carrying a fish to his mate, and by superior 

 wing-power and force compelling the smaller bird to drop the prey 

 which he had caught ; then, as soon as the Osprey had let go 

 his charge, the Eagle would swoop down, and often succeed in 

 picking up the fish before it reached the water ! 



This Eagle, although so strong and powerful a flyer, obtains 

 a great quantity of his food by bullying smaller birds. He allows 

 them to do the work, often watching them from a prominent 

 perch, and then, before they have a chance of enjoying their meal, 

 he dashes down and takes it from them. 



I have sometimes been asked if the scenery in such haunts 

 as those in which the Sea-Eagle makes his home, is beautiful. 

 I should say decidedly no. It is wild, rugged, gigantic, and grand; 

 but not beautiful in the sense that we call a Surrey common or 

 a Devonshire lane beautiful. It is not even pretty ; in fact, some 

 of the scenery of the North might be called ugly ; and from my 

 open window, as I write, I look out upon a shapeless, rugged 

 headland, the topmost rock lost in the clouds, and the shore 

 lashed and beaten by the waves of a roaring easterly gale the 

 whole almost obliterated by a driving storm of rain. But through 

 it all I repeatedly hear the cry of Kittiwakes and Herring Gulls, 

 and I think of the time when in this very spot the great Eagle 

 was to be seen, and on the steep rock above me many young 

 have been reared. 



The Eagle looks a really magnificent bird as he soars over 

 his mountainous home. His broad pinions seem to belong to 

 the hills, and he looks as much out of place in the lowlands as 

 a Robin might if we were to see one on the wild, bleak, grey 

 hills of Sutherlandshire. I have seen the Eagle, with his great 



45 H 



