GOLDEN EAGLE. 97 



Northumberland/ published in 1769, that the Golden Eagle bred on the 

 highest and steepest part of Cheviot ; and Sir William Jardine, writing in 

 1838, mentions the cliffs of Westmoreland and Cumberland as once its 

 home. The Golden Eagle's only stronghold in our islands now is the 

 western and northern counties of Scotland and throughout the Hebrides 

 and also in the wildest parts of Ireland, although the bird of late years 

 appears to have decreased in numbers there. It also formerly bred in the 

 Orkneys, but, according to the best authorities, has not been known to do 

 so in the Shetlands. Outside the British Islands the Golden Eagle has 

 a very wide and extensive range. With the exception of Iceland, it 

 breeds throughout the greater part of the Palaearctic Region, from 

 Scandinavia to North Africa, and from Spain across Europe and Asia * 

 (except the extreme north, but as far south as the Himalayas), to Dauria 

 and China, being migratory in the extreme limits of its northern range. In 

 the Nearctic Region, with the exception of Greenland, it is found from the 

 temperate to the Arctic regions, chiefly confined to the mountainous 

 districts, but is nowhere numerous. 



It is not till the vast solitudes of the Scottish Highlands are reached. 

 that the Golden Eagle may with any confidence be expected to be seen. 

 Once, however, among the wild grand scenery there, and the imagination 

 seems to create an eagle in every wild glen and on every rocky pinnacle. 

 Glens and mountains are on every side of you here a deer-forest or a 

 birch coppice there a rocky glen or a broad stretch of heathery waste, 

 over which the Plovers and the Redshanks rising, scream at your intru- 

 sion. On every side the mountains rear their hoary peaks ; and the clouds 

 hang densely round them, hiding their summits, and giving them a truly 

 wild and weird appearance. The wild scenery is enlivened and varied 

 by a mountain-loch, with its hilly banks clothed in verdure to the water's 

 edge. Streams roll down from the mountains in mad career ; over huge 

 rocky moss-grown boulders they fall and plunge, or flow slowly through 

 still dark pools, where trout and salmon sport and birch trees hang so 

 gracefully. Or, again, the scenery becomes desolate and dreary grey 

 rocks, stupendous hills, romantic glens and moors, in all their wild 

 primeval seclusion, where the Eagle's barking cry and the hoarse 

 croaks of the Raven and Hoodie are the only signs of life. Such haunts 

 as these are the lordly Eagle's home, his hunting-grounds, his regal fast- 

 ness ; and hither you must repair if you wish to make his acquaintance. But 

 the Golden Eagle is no common bird, and is often " not at home." Days 

 and weeks may pass when not an Eagle is to be seen ; for, except in the 

 breeding-season, the bird is a thorough wanderer, and explores vast tracts 

 of country in Search of prey. It is also when not engaged with nesting- 



* Dybowski obtained it near Lake Baikal, and Radde obtained it in the Amoor. 



VOL. I. H 



