AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE. 551 



longingly upon the mate and eyrie of another eagle, and both are 

 lost to their owner if he allows himself to be vanquished in fight by 

 the intruder. The rightful lord, therefore, fights to the death 

 against everyone who attempts to disturb his marital and domestic 

 happiness. The battle begins high in the air, but is often finished 

 on the ground. With beak and claw, first one, then the other ven- 

 tures an assault; at length one succeeds in getting a grip of his 

 adversary, whose talons, in return, are promptly fixed in his rival's 

 body. Like balls of feathers, the two fall to the ground, or into the 

 water, when both let go their hold, but only to renew the attack. 

 When they fight on the ground, the rivals challenge one another 

 like enraged cocks, and blood and feathers left behind show the 

 scene of the battle and bear witness to its deadly seriousness. The 

 female circles above the combatants or watches them from her high 

 perch with seeming indifference, but she never fails to caress the 

 conqueror, whether he be her lawful spouse or the new-comer. 

 Woe to the eagle if he does not succeed in repulsing the intruder! 

 In the eyes of the female, none but the strong deserves the 

 fair. 



After successfully repelled attacks and fights of that kind, from 

 which no eagle is exempt, and which are said to be repeated in 

 Hungary every year, the pair, probably long wedded, take possession 

 of the old eyrie, and begin, in February, to repair it. Both birds set 

 to work to collect the necessary material, picking it up from the 

 ground, or from the water, or breaking it off the trees, and carrying 

 it in their talons, often for a long distance, to the nest, to rebuild and 

 improve this as well as an eagle can. As this building up of the old 

 nest takes place every year, it gradually grows to a considerable 

 height, and one can tell from it the age of the birds, and may also 

 guess the probable duration of their wedded life; for the oldest nest 

 contains the oldest pair of eagles. The nest is not always placed 

 among the highest branches of the tree, but is in all cases high above 

 the ground, more or less near the trunk, and always on strong 

 boughs which can bear its heavy and ever-increasing weight. Both 

 upper and lower tiers consist of sticks and twigs laid loosely above 

 and across one another; and many pairs of hedge-sparrows, which 



