THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 131 



down on the tarsi, and the deep brown bar on the end of the 

 tail, together with the whole air of the bird, point out at 

 once that it is the golden eagle. Give it but its form and 

 expression, and no ntatter though the colour were white, 

 black, or even green, the golden eagle would never be mis- 

 taken for any other bird, any more than a friend, of whose 

 person, air, and gait we had a complete knowledge, would 

 be lost to our recollection, or changed to another person by 

 merely putting on a dress of a different colour. 



The golden eagle is now rare in England, if, indeed, it be 

 found there at all ; and even in the highlands of Scotland it 

 is by no means common, and its eyrie at least is confined to 

 the most wild and inaccessible places of the mountains, and 

 only in those places that are cliffy and precipitous. I have 

 seen eagles beating about in the higher glens of the rivers 

 that rise on the south-east side of the Grampians. I know 

 that one pair, at least, nestle somewhere in the high cliff 

 called Wallace's Crag, on the north side of Lochlee, and 

 another somewhere in Craig Muskeldie, on the south side of 

 the same. I have observed the four all in the sky at one 

 time ; and I for some time wrote with a quill which dropped 

 from one of their wings in the autumn of 1819. An intel- 

 ligent farmer, who had resided all his days on the spot, 

 assured me that the Wallace Crag eagles had been known in 

 the days of his grandfather (the people there are rather 

 famed for longevity, though the sun does not shine on the 

 lake for several weeks at mid- winter) ; but those on the 

 south side were not such old settlers, and they were con- 

 jectured to be descendants of the former, although driven off 

 by their parents, according to the general habits of the birds. 

 I have seen them in Strathspey and Badenoch, in Strath- 

 errick, and in the moor between Kiltarlity and Strathglass ; 

 and I once saw one over Culloden Moor, not far from the 

 scene of the battle, though some of the land in the inter- 



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