FALCOXID^. 119 



where iu the South-west are there to be found precipices 

 of sufficient rugoedness and grandeur to be worthy of the 

 Mountain Eagle's eyrie. Dartmoor and Exmoor are downs 

 with rounded ridges, which run in succession like the heads 

 of billows, only here and there crowned on the former with 

 some fantastic blocks of granite, hardly offering space 

 enough to support the massive structure of the Eagle's nest. 

 Along the coast there were, no doubt, a few eyries of the 

 Erne, especially on spots frequented by Razorbills, Her- 

 ring-Gulls, and other cliff-nesting birds which provided its 

 daily meals. Tradition claims for the Dewerstone Rock, 

 near Plymouth, and also for Lundy Island, with much 

 probability, that they were formerly each of them occupied 

 by a pair of White-tailed Eagles. In spite of their size 

 and splendid flight, the position awarded to Eagles by 

 the poets w^ould hardly be acknowledged by the falconer, 

 who looks upon them only as large Buzzards, not to be 

 compared in courage and dash with his favourite Falcons, 

 nor by the modern man of science, who regards other 

 characters as of more importance in classification than 

 strength and ferocity. 



[Spotted Eagle. Aquila danga, Pallas. 



The Eagle whose plumage has obtained for it the above name is the 

 young of one which, in its adult stage, is like a Golden Eagle in miniature, 

 and has been described by ornithologists who have observed it in Central 

 Europe as having many of the habits of the Comniou Euzzard. In the 

 winter of 1858, Mr. .Spencer Heaven, of Lundy Island, in turning a corner 

 of the cliff's, came suddenly on an Eagle engaged in devouring a rabbit, and 

 having a gun with him fired at it, when the bird, in its death-struggles, 

 rolled over the edge of the cliif, and, falling into the sea below, could not 

 be recovered. Eroin some feathers which were picked up it was con- 

 cluded that this bird was a Spotted Eagle in the same stage of plumage as 

 two very fine examples soon alter obtained in Cornwall, which also 

 occurred in the winter — the first on 4th Dec, l8(!0, shot in the oast of 

 Cornwall, not very far from the Devonshire boundary, at Hawk's Wood, 

 the i)roperty of Erancis llodd, Ks(j., of Trebartha. This beautiful bird was 

 presented to tho collection of his uncle, the late Mr. E. 11. lludd, of Ten- 



