SIXTH DAY. 97 
heavily, and the folding of its great wings; so I cautiously 
looked round, and saw the bird sitting on a dead branch a 
hundred paces off. Seizing my rifle, I aimed and fired, and 
the eagle spread its wings and flew away low over the ground, 
disappearing among the bushes. I had got the shot off so 
well, and the bird had flown so very low, that both the 
forester and I made sure that the ball had hit it ; but though 
we carefully searched near the nest, all our trouble was in 
vain. 
I now returned to my attendants, and as they had never 
seen the eagle leave the wood after the shot, our opinions 
were confirmed ; so we sent them off to look again. While 
under the nest, I had heard two shots from my brother-in-law, 
about a mile away. This seemed to me a bad sign, but I was 
soon reassured when the sharp crack of his Werder rifle rang 
through the wood about half an hour afterwards. 
As soon as all my men had gone off to search, and even 
the climber was rummaging about, the forester and I walked 
along the meadows by the edge of the wood to the Bega Canal. 
A few hundred yards down it I found a Black Stork’s nest on 
an old oak near the edge of the cover. The long-legged bird 
had built on the lower branches of the tree, and I could see 
its red bill protruding over the edge of the nest ; so I posted 
myself in a good position close to the wood and sent the 
forester to the stem of the tree; but his attempts to frighten 
it off by making a noise were ineffectual, nor have I ever 
seen any of our larger woodland birds so confiding and 
tame. 
As all our efforts were fruitless, I fired my first barrel at 
the long bill of the stork, and unfortunately only with too 
good an aim, for it hung down broken, and the bird, quite 
disfigured and bewildered, flew out straight over my head, the 
second barrel bringing it to the ground. 
A few minutes afterwards the male came cruising high 
H 
