3° CLARKE: THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



British birds, is now exceedingly rare, having gradually become 

 scarcer since the gun came into general use. 



About thirty years ago it bred at Bishop's Wood near Selby, 

 three pairs frequenting the wood annually. This information 

 was given to me by the late keeper, Mr. Wm. Harland, who used 

 to procure the young birds when a boy. At about the same time 

 it was abundant among the fells of Upper Wharfedale, where the 

 young and eggs were by no means rare. It has nested near the 

 summit of Great Whernside, from whence its eggs have been 

 procured; and in 1863 two young birds were obtained from a nest 

 in the vicinity of Kilnsey in the same valley. 



Mr. H. Smurthwaite, writing in Morris' Naturalist (1853, p, 

 108) recorded its breeding near Sedbergh in the summer of 1852 ; 

 and the same gentleman in the same journal mentions its nesting 

 in Red Crag, Richmond, where five young were reared, a most 

 unusual number, for, so far as my experience goes, two is the most 

 frequent number of eggs, but I have known of three being found 

 occasionally. 



I have little doubt that a pair or two even now nest in the 

 unfrequented mountainous districts of north-west Yorkshire where 

 they are still able to pass undetected and undisturbed. I have 

 authentic evidence of its nesting here in 1878, when the eggs were 

 taken and the old birds shot at, in the belief that they were 

 Golden Eagles. I am not at liberty to mention the exact locality, 

 it being the wish of my informant that it be withheld in the interest 

 of the birds. Mr. James Varley observed a pair flying in circles 

 over Gordale Scar on the 6th of May 1877 ; Mr. F, S. Mitchell 

 of Clitheroe informs me that it is shot almost every year on the 

 Fells near Slaidburn, although he has never heard of its breeding ; 

 and Captain Wade Dalton, of Hawxwell Hall near Bedale, tells 

 me that it occurs in the winter on the moors but is by no means 

 common. No doubt at this season it descends from the higher 

 and more exposed fells lying to the westward. 



Mr. Charles Waterton (Loudon's Mag., Aug. 1835, viii. 453) 



Trans.Y.N.U., 1878. Series B 



