548 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



warbled its spring greeting amidst the trees, a woodpecker called 

 joyously, the nightingales poured forth their inspiring melody, 

 and poetic souls revealed themselves even among the thieves and 

 robbers. 



Richly laden with booty, we returned, after five hours' sport, to 

 our comfortable quarters on board ship, and occupied ourselves as 

 we steamed further with the scientific arrangement of our newly- 

 acquired treasures. For hours we travelled through forests such 

 as I have depicted, now and then passing by large or small hamlets, 

 villages, and towns, until the gathering darkness forced us to moor 

 our vessel. In the early dawn of the following morning we reached 

 Apatin. The firing of cannon, music, and joyous acclamation greet 

 the much-loved heir to the throne. People of all sorts throng about 

 the boat; native hunting-assistants, nest-seekers, tree-climbers, and 

 bird-skinners come on board; more than a dozen of the little boats 

 called " Ezikela " are loaded. Then our steamer turns up stream 

 again, to land us in the neighbourhood of a broad arm of the river. 

 Up this we penetrated for the first time into the damp meadow- 

 forests. All the little boats which had joined us in Apatin followed 

 our larger one, like ducklings swimming after a mother duck. 

 To-day the chase is directed solely against the sea eagle which 

 broods so abundantly in these forests that no fewer than five eyries 

 could be found within a radius of a square mile. We separated 

 with the sportsman's salute, to approach these eyries from different 

 directions. 



I was well acquainted with these bold and rapacious, if rather 

 ignoble birds of prey, for I had seen them in Norway and Lapland, 

 in Siberia and in Egypt, but I had never observed them beside their 

 eyries; and the opportunity of doing so was most welcome. As his 

 name implies, the favourite habitat of the sea-eagle is by the sea- 

 coasts, or on the banks of lakes and rivers rich in fish. If winter 

 drives him from his haunts, he migrates as far southwards as is 

 necessary to enable him to pick up a living during the cold months. 

 In Hungary, this eagle is the commonest of all the large birds of 

 prey; he does not forsake the country even in winter, and only 

 makes long expeditions in his earlier years before maturity, as 



