8 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



year ago, namely, that printed lists are actually in circulation 

 among keepers and shepherds in the county referred to, offering 

 large prices for the eggs of birds of prey, and thus opening up a 

 temptation to these men which no amount of care on the part of 

 their employers is ever able to counteract. Nothing but the 

 strongest censure can be meted out to such collectors as would 

 bribe a man in humble circumstances to procure eggs of the 

 Golden or White-tailed Eagles, Kite, or Osprey, at the price of 

 ten pounds for each specimen. 



OBS. It may here be mentioned that the late Mr Thompson, 

 in his work on the Birds of Ireland, has inserted the following 

 notice in the appendix to the third volume regarding the supposed 

 occurrence of the Spotted Eagle (Aquila ncevia) in the island of 

 Skye: 



"Dwvegan Castle, Skye, October, 1850. It is not improbable 

 that the Spotted Eagle has occurred in this island. On my 

 questioning Mr Pack (who has been resident here for fourteen 

 years, and eleven of them as gamekeeper) respecting the birds of 

 Skye, he described a spotted eagle though he had never heard of 

 a species being so called having been killed by one of the shep- 

 herds of the late Mr Macleod, of Orbost, about the year "1840. 

 Soon afterwards, he himself saw another, and subsequently, within 

 a short time, either a second bird or the same individual again. 

 The size he does not accurately remember, though he recollects 

 that it was liker to the Golden than the Sea Eagle; the spotting 

 which he describes would apply correctly to the bird in question. 

 He and others who saw the individual which was shot considered 

 it quite distinct from the Golden and Sea Eagles, and the Osprey, 

 all of which are found there." 



Although this species has never come under my own observation, 

 nor been seen or heard of by any of my correspondents in that 

 part of the country, it is not unlikely that specimens may yet 

 occur, seeing that it has been known to breed and been killed in 

 several instances in Ireland, whence but a short flight would take- 

 it to some of the southern and middle districts of the Scottish 

 Hebrides. 



