FIRST DAY. 3 
investigation as I possibly could, and had enjoyed the 
pleasure of passing almost every afternoon in his society. 
We had a great deal of talk about the. eagles, especially 
of the difficulties attendant on their study and pursuit, and 
of their greatly decreasing numbers. 
At: this very time Hodek, who had also assisted us in 
procuring skins of the “Stein”? Eagle, had just received 
his first and very favourable report from the districts of the 
Lower Danube. So, again, there arose the exciting question 
of whether I could or could not manage to visit those 
localities down the river where the eagles and the great 
vultures nest, and where so many splendid sporting adven- 
tures might be expected. 
The answer was not difficult; for I had only to look at 
Brehm, with his broad shoulders and face tanned by exposure 
—a man who shunned neither harassing mental desk-work 
nor the troubles and fatigues of natural-history studies and 
explorations in the most widely separated parts of the world. 
Such a favourable opportunity of making an expedition 
of this sort, with such a companion, was quite enough to 
decide me ; while there was, moreover, another ornithologist 
staying in Vienna—LEugen von Homeyer, universally known 
among scientific men as the President of the Ornithological 
Society of Berlin. . 
Homeyer, who was a celebrated authority on eagles, had 
long been trying to solve the problem of the “ Stein” and 
Golden Eagles, and had been invited by Brehm to Vienna to 
help in working out the materials. He too was attracted by 
the idea of a trip to those splendid hunting-grounds, and 
resolved to accompany us. 
An excursion which we made a few days before Haster 
to the “auwiilder” * of the Danube, near Vienna, in order 
* Both “auen” and “auwiilder” are indifferently used in the text to 
denote the marshy low-lying woods of the Danube. 
B2 
