air playing with one another and uttering from time to 

 time a sharp yelp or bark. The first Plate represents a 

 specimen in the plumage of the first or second year ; 

 the second, in adult plumage, was taken from a sketch 

 of an old female sent to me from a nest in Ireland in 

 1854, and still alive in good health and plumage at 

 Lilford, February 1890. 



The Highland shepherds accuse the White-tailed 

 Eagle of destroying many lambs, and there is, I fear, no 

 doubt that the accusation is well founded ; but in Epirus 

 I was begged by some of the pastoral and more or less 

 brigand fraternity to spare the old birds at a nest on the 

 shores of the Gulf of Arta, on account of their services 

 in driving away other birds of prey ; these individuals, 

 however, were Greeks, and probably lied, and, although 

 I scrupulously attended to their request, I am inclined 

 to think that it was based on some superstition rather 

 than on the reason alleged. 



