102 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
When we were all on board we took leave of the Land- 
. Steward and the somewhat numerous staff of foresters; 
and I must here acknowledge with many thanks the kindly 
care in arranging and facilitating our troublesome shooting 
excursions which was so largely displayed by all the Arch- 
ducal ‘officials during our several days’ stay in this neigh- 
bourhood. 
In order to give the reader some idea of the wealth of 
raptorial birds in these Archducal forests, I will here enume- 
rate the nests which the keepers said they knew of. Most of 
these we visited, only omitting a few which were too far off 
our beat. When such a number were found in such dense 
and almost impassable woods, how many must there still have 
been in these immense wildernesses that the keepers could 
not possibly have known anything about ! 
Those well known were :—Twelve Sea-Eagles’, one Short- 
toed Eagle’s, three Ospreys’, one Eagle-Owl’s, eight or nine 
Ravens’, twenty to thirty Black Storks’, and some twenty nests 
belonging to smaller hawks. What a number of feathered 
vermin on one and the same estate! -And in what part of 
Central Europe so near such a large town as Pest does there 
exist a similar refuge for such uncommonly shy birds of 
prey ? 
The Archducal estates are, however, the most northerly 
points on the Danube where the large eagles breed, and the 
“auen” of the Bega Canal are the very nearest woods to 
Pest where the-Sea-Eagle can be found nesting ; but from 
what I know of the character of these districts and of their 
advancing civilization, I think I may safely predict that ten 
or twenty years hence no Sea-Hagles will be found there, 
while in the wilds round Apatin they will long be able to 
carry on their predatory pursuits quite unmolested. 
The weather had cleared during the morning, so we had 
every reason to look forward to a pleasant and interesting 
