86 ON EAGLES. 



fonder of dead carcasses, which may in part account for 

 its partiality to the sea-shore. Those I allude to de- 

 voured crows, jackdaws, livers, fish, or almost any carrion 

 that was thrown to them. Their eyries are mostly in the 

 precipitous cliifs on the coast. 



The sea-eagle is rather larger than the golden, and of 

 a lighter brown. The bill, which is longer and broader, 

 but not so hooked as the other, is of a dull yellowish 

 white. The whole of the tail-feathers of the young ones 

 are brown, when they gradually change to white, which 

 is complete about the fourth year the very reverse of 

 the golden-eagle. The tail is also shorter, and the legs are 

 not feathered to the toes, like the other ; but quite enough 

 to show that the bird was not intended to subsist by fish- 

 ing, like the osprey, whose legs are bare to the thighs, 

 which have only a thin covering of short feathers. 



THE OSPREY. 



The osprey, or water-eagle, frequents many of the 

 Highland lochs ; a pair had their eyrie for many years on 

 the top of a ruin, in a small island on Loch Lomond. I 

 am sorry to say I was the means of their leaving that 

 haunt, which they had occupied for generations. 



It was their custom, when a boat approached the island, 

 to come out and meet it, always keeping at a most respect- 

 ful distance, flying round in very wide circles until the 

 boat left the place, when, having escorted it a consider- 

 able way, they would return and settle on the ruin. 



