no British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



Familv—FAL CONWyE. 



Spotted Eagle. 



Aquila ncBvia, GmeL. 



TEN examples of this small Eagle which, in its spotted plumage, is the 

 immature form of a reddish-brown bird resembling a Golden Eagle 

 in miniature, and is a straggler to this countr}^ from Central and Southern 

 Europe, have been recorded, and others may yet be expected to visit us, getting 

 mingled ^^^th autumn migrants. Two were shot near Youghal, in Ireland, in 

 Januar3^ 1845 ! two were obtained in Cornwall, the first, on 4th December, i860, 

 was shot in Hawk's Wood, the property of Francis Rodd, Esq., of Trebartha, and 

 was for a long time in the fine collection of British Birds formed by his uncle, 

 Mr. E. H. Rodd, of Penzance; the second was shot in November, 1861, in the 

 parish of St. Mawgan, near St. Columb, and was gorged with horse-fiesh when 

 killed ; it was a beautiful specimen, and was placed in the Truro Museum. 

 Another, at Somerley, Hants, December 28th, 1861. One was picked up dead on 

 Walney Island, Lancashire, in 1875 ; one was obtained in Northumberland, October 

 31st, 1885 ; while in the autumn of 1891, a small flock appears to have reached 

 the south-eastern counties, out of which two were shot, and one secured alive. 

 Besides these, an Eagle, shot on the cliffs of Lundj' Island, by Mr. S. D. B. 

 Heaven, in the winter of 1858, as it rose off a rabbit it was devoviring, and which 

 fell into the sea, was believed to be an example of the Spotted Eagle from a few 

 of the larger feathers that were recovered. 



To give fuller particulars of the most recent visitation : — On October 29th, 

 1891, a farm labourer, when working in a field at Elmstead, near Colchester, saw 

 a large bird alight that allowed him to capture it, that proved to be a young 

 Spotted Eagle, in an exhausted condition. This bird subsequently passed, still 

 alive, into the possession of the Hon. Walter Rothschild, of Tring, who permitted 

 Lord Lilford to have a drawing made from it by Mr. Thorburn for his Coloured 

 Plates of British Birds. Another, shot on the Sudbourne Hall estate, near Wick- 

 ham Market, Suffolk, November 4th, 1891, a young male, was sent to Messrs. 

 Pratt & Sons, the well-known bird-stufifers, of Brighton, and was admirably mounted 

 by them. On dissection the remains of a water-rat and a Partridge were found 



