328 GOLDEN EAGLE. 
at best, a rare visitor in the cold season. Its present breeding- 
places are confined to the Highlands and to the islands off the 
western coast, where, owing to the protection afforded by many of 
the proprietors of deer-forests, its numbers have, to some extent, 
recovered from the destructiveness of grouse-preservers. It no 
longer, however, nests in the Orkneys, and has never been known 
to do so in the Shetlands. In Ireland a few pairs remain in the 
north and west, but their years are numbered. 
The Golden Eagle inhabits the mountains as well as some of the 
forests of Europe, from Lapland to the Mediterranean ; North 
Africa; Asia, as far east as the Amur and Southern Japan, and south- 
ward to the Himalayas; and also America north of lat. 35°; but it is 
unknown in Iceland or Greenland. Over this vast area considerable 
variations in size and plumage are observed :—examples fro 
Western Europe being darker than those from the Central an 
Southern portion ; while adults as well as young from the easter 
half of Russia have a great deal of white at the base of the tail. 
The maximum of size appears to be attained in the lofty ranges of 
Central Asia and the Himalayas, but some American birds are 
very large. Four distinct species—one of which is divided into five 
varieties—are recognised by some Russian naturalists ! 
The nest—placed on the ledge of a crag in mountainous regions, 
but often in a tree, and occasionally on the ground—is usually a large 
platform of sticks, lined with softer materials and the fresh tufts of 
Luzula sylvatica. The eggs, laid early in April, are 2 and some- 
times 3 in number, while an exceptional instance of 4 was recorded 
by the late Sir J. W. P. Campbell-Orde. Some are dull greyish- 
white or mottled-buff; others are streaked, blotched, or even richly 
suffused with shades of reddish brown and lilac ; and at times only 
one white egg will be found in the nest: measurements 2°9 by 
2°3 in. In Scotland the “Black Eagle,” as it is called (and some 
equivalent of that name prevails wherever the bird is known), feeds 
to a great extent upon mountain-hares, while on the Continent it 
eats marmots and similar animals ; it also takes grouse and other 
birds, lambs, occasionally fawns and the ‘calves’ of red deer, and, 
when pressed by hunger, it does not refuse carrion. Its note is a 
shrill squeal, ending in an abrupt bark. 
The general colour is dark brown, tawny on the nape ; the tail is. 
mottled with dark grey in the adults, but the basal half is white in 
the young, which have also white bases to their body-feathers ; 
thighs dark brown ; legs feathered to the toes. Length 32-36 in. ; 
wing 24-27 in.; the female being decidedly larger than the male. 
