GOLDEN EAGLE. / 



line, and about the same height from the ground, until it was lost 

 to sight. 



" An occasional Golden Eagle," writes my friend Mr Henry 

 D. Graham, " may still be seen pursuing his lofty course over 

 the moors and mountains of Mull and the surrounding islands. 

 A friend, a few years ago, killed one out of a party of seven a 

 number which would have been thought deeply significant in the 

 days when augury was a fashionable science. In Jura a pair flew 

 close over my head as I sat on the hill side with a friend and 

 a gamekeeper at luncheon. The two birds sailed slowly past 

 without deigning to notice us." 



Mr Alexander M'Niven, Shemore, lately told me he had seen 

 an eagle this year in somewhat novel circumstances. He w T as on 

 the banks of Loch Lomond with a party of friends, when their 

 attention was drawn to a squall sweeping down the loch in their 

 direction. Suddenly it burst upon them in all its fury the 

 darkened sky having an extraordinary appearance as the hail and 

 rain dashed with a loud hissing noise into the loch. In the very 

 front of this tempest cloud there sailed the majestic bird, turning 

 not its flight, but steadily flying before the blast. The whole of 

 the party saw it, and the species was recognized at once by Mr 

 M'Niven, who had frequently seen Golden Eagles before near his 

 own residence. Later still, Mr J. A. Harvie Brown, of Dunipace, 

 has sent me his notes taken in Sutherlandshire up to the close of 

 the nesting season of 1869, in which frequent allusion is made to 

 the flight of this king of birds. 



" There are still," writes Mr Brown, " several localities where 

 the Golden Eagle has its eyrie in Sutherlandshire, but of course 

 their numbers have been rapidly on the decrease since Mr Selby 

 visited the county. J. S. assured me that in the short space of 

 three weeks he once killed sixteen adult Golden Eagles and Sea 

 Eagles. I know that one gentleman, who was like ourselves 

 collecting this year in Sutherlandshire, obtained three Golden 

 Eagle's eggs in the north of the county. He bought them from 

 a shepherd who had them in his possession for some time. This 

 does not make it appear that the latest orders will invariably be 

 attended to by shepherds and gamekeepers." While commend- 

 ing this short paragraph to the careful notice of Highland 

 proprietors, I take the opportunity of also drawing their attention 

 to a fact communicated by Mr John Bateson to the Times about a 



