THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 147 



own subsistence, they are driven from the nest, and 

 compelled to choose a distant spot for their retreat; 

 for so jealous are the Eagles of the undivided sove- 

 reignty of the districts they inhabit, that they will not 

 suffer even their own progeny to hunt within the circle 

 of their domains. 



The birds of this genus, like most of the other birds 

 of prey, change their plumage to such an extent as they 

 advance in age, that their various stages of growth 

 have been repeatedly described as distinct species. 

 Thus the Golden Eagle occurs in the compilations of 

 Gmelin and other naturalists of the same stamp under 

 no fewer than four, or even five, different denominations. 

 Some uncertainty still prevails with respect to the Ring- 

 tail Eagle of Pennant, which M. Cuvier continues to 

 enumerate as a substantive species, but which M. Tem- 

 minck asserts to be nothing more than the young of the 

 Golden Eagle in its first or second year. Following 

 the decision of Montagu and most of the older writers, 

 Mr. Wilson has expressed himself, in a paper published 

 in the Wernerian Transactions, in favour of M. Cuvier's 

 view of the subject ; but we rely too confidently on 

 the authority of M. Temminck, confirmed by that of 

 Mr. Seiby, not to adopt the conclusions at which these 

 gentlemen have arrived from actual observation, in pre- 

 ference to the more or less theoretical ideas on which 

 the opposite opinion is founded. The Society's Mena- 

 gerie contains at the present moment individuals in 

 both states of plumage ; and we shall therefore in all 

 probability in the course of a few years have an oppor- 

 tunity of verifying the fact by our own obsei'vations. 



The cut at the head of the present article represents 

 the European Golden Eagle in its fully adult plumage. 

 In this state it is almost wholly coloured of a dusky 



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