9 



comparatively unmolested, the nest is often to be met 



with on trees, sometimes on bushes, and occasionally 

 even on the ground ; it is built of sticks, piled on year 

 after year as the exigencies of time and weather may 

 require, and lined with grasses, moss, and fern. John 

 Wolley, as quoted in the 4tli edition of Yarrell, says 

 that, in the many nests of this species found by him in 

 Scotland, Luzula sylvatica was always made use of, but 

 I never had the good fortune to see a nest at close 

 quarters in that country. The eggs are generally laid 

 in March, two in number, and are pure white. Imma- 

 ture birds of this species are very frequently met with 

 in autumn and winter on the east coast of England, and 

 not very uncommonly inland, and are easily shot or 

 trapped ; in a great many instances these occurrences 

 are recorded in the local newspapers as those of 

 " Magnificent Golden Eagles which have been devas- 

 tating &c. &c." These wandering Eagles, as a matter 

 of fact, subsist principally upon rabbits and any dead 

 animal substances that they can find. I have seen this 

 bird several times in Scotland, more frequently on the 

 west coast of Ireland, and often on the Turkish shores 

 of the Adriatic ; in the latter localities it seemed to prey 

 principally upon white mullet and bass captured in the 

 shallow bays and lagoons, and also to a great extent on 

 the carcases of cattle left to rot on the plains. I have 

 also, on several occasions, seen a White-tailed Eagle 

 stoop at swimming water-fowl, but only once witnessed 

 a capture of this kind ; the old Eagles were generally 

 observed either sitting motionless on a dead bough of 

 some lofty tree in the marshes, or soaring high in the 



