XXVI. 

 FALCO CHRYSyETOS. (linn.) 



Golden Eaole. 



This noble bird is now very rare in Britain, and will, 

 I fear, with many of the same persecuted tribe, ere long 

 become extinct ; it breeds in the Highlands of Scotland, in 

 Orkney, and in Shetland ; and, though I traversed the whole 

 of the hitter group of islands, and spent six weeks amongst 

 them, I could only hear of three or four eyries belonging to 

 our two species of eagles, and could only ascertain with cer- 

 tainty that one of them was the breeding place of the Golden 

 Eagle : this was in the cliffs of Foula (perhaps the finest in 

 the British empire), and at an elevation of about 1,100 feet 

 above the sea, being then 100 feet from the summit, and seem- 

 ing from the almost perpendicular surface of the rock to bid 

 defiance to the approach of anything not endowed with wings ; 

 but even to this dizzy height the hardy natives had climbed 

 and borne away the young ones. The Eagle begins to breed 

 in March or early in April, returning to the same cliffs for 

 many years together, and choosing those which are the least 

 accessible ; it makes a nest of great size, composed of a quan- 

 tity of sticks, and lined with softer materials, roots, straw, 

 dry grass, and wool. In Shetland, where there are no sticks 

 to be met with, there being no wood growing upon the islands, 

 it has recourse to the long root-like pieces of sea-weed, of 

 which to form the outer part of its nest. I have not been 

 able to ascertain with certainty the number of eggs which it 

 lays, but would, from what I have heard, su|)pose that two is 

 the most common number, though, it is said, to lay three or 

 four : in the nest mentioned above there were only two young 

 ones, and these, the old birds would, I think, find quite a suffi- 

 cient charge for which to provide food. Mr. Salmon, 



