I20 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



had it stuffed, and placed in a handsome mahogany case, — it was, he said, his 

 couutr3''s bird, — and stood it at the bottom of his bed, while over his head, sus- 

 pended from the wall, waved the Stars and Stripes ! 



Macgillivray thus describes the flight: — "A beautiful sight it is, on some 

 sunny da}^ when two Eagles are seen floating lazil}' in the blue sky, far above 

 the tops of the brown hills. Slowly and majestically, with wide-spread wings, they 

 sail in wide circles, gradually ascending, until at length you can scarcely perceive 

 them. They may continue this exercise for more than an hour, and should you 

 inquire the object of it, you may be satisfied that it is not for the purpose of 

 sp^-ing their prey, for no one ever saw an Eagle stoop from such a height. On 

 ordinary occasions, when proceeding from one place to another, they fly in the 

 usual manner, by slowly repeated flaps. In the breeding-season, should two males 

 encounter each other, they sometimes fight in the air, throwing themselves into 

 singular postures, and screaming loudly. The cry of this species is so shrill, that 

 in calm weather one may hear it at the distance of a mile, and it often emits a 

 kind of clear yelp, which resembles the syllable klick, klick, klick, or queck, queek, 

 queck, and which seems to be the expression of anger or impatience." 



The White-tailed Eagle may always be distinguished from the Golden Eagle 

 b}' its having the lower part of the tarsus naked, in the Golden Eagle the tarsus 

 is feathered down to the toes. The toes are also different, those of the White- 

 tailed Eagle being covered with broad scutellations on the whole length of the 

 upper middle toe, while the Golden Eagle has only three of these scutellations at 

 the ends of its toes. Like the Golden Eagle the White-tailed Eagle varies greatly 

 in size ; Robert Gray gives the average stretch of wing of thirty that he had 

 examined as seven feet and a half; a very large specimen that came into the 

 hands of Macgillivray extended nine feet in stretch of wings ! 



In the adults the head, neck, forepart of the back and breast, and upper 

 wing-coverts are greyish yellow, the feathers all greyish brown at the base ; of 

 the other parts greyish brown, edged with yellowish grey ; scapulars and feathers 

 of the rump glossed with purple ; those of the abdomen, tibise, and subcaudal 

 region, inclining to chocolate brown ; quills and alular feathers brownish black 

 with a tinge of grey ; upper tail-coverts and tail white, generally freckled with 

 dusky grey at the base ; cere pale yellow ; beak bluish grey, yellow at the base ; 

 in very old birds the whole of the beak is yellow ; irides bright yellow ; tarsi and 

 toes bright yellow ; claws black, with a tinge of greyish blue. The female does 

 not differ from the male, except in being of larger size. Length T)^ inches, male ; 

 40 inches female. The young are first covered with greyish-white down, and do 

 not leave the nest until about the middle of August. As soon as they are strong 



