196 FIFTFEN,..DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
opportunity of watching their truly majestic flight, as with- 
out any visible movement of their wings they sailed through 
the air; but not even the hungry cries of the two almost 
fledged young ones ever induced the parents to come near 
the nest. 
Both the old eagles were particularly large and finely 
coloured, and their pale plumage looked so attractive that I 
should have had great pleasure in adding one of them to our 
collection; but my patience was all in vain, and when Hodek 
came up to my hiding-place, and besought me to leave it and 
to go further on, I yielded to his advice, and proceeded 
towards the interior of the forest, following the same path. 
After walking a little way through the thickets, we reached 
a high oak wood where a few white poplars and wild fruit- 
trees with an undergrowth of hawthorn diversified the other- 
wise rather common-place-looking cover. 
Unhappily this locality, like all other parts of these forests, 
was swarming with wandering herds of pigs, sheep, and cattle, 
while wild cut-throat-looking herdsmen, with their grey, 
shaggy wolf-dogs, loafed after the pasturing beasts. All these 
men are armed with pistols, partly for scaring the wolves, 
which range about these districts, and partly for protecting 
themselves against the powerful wild-boar-like males of the 
so-called tame pigs; for every year, as I was told by people 
on the spot, several of these herdsmen are attacked while 
asleep and killed by their own pigs in the most horrible way. 
They also use their pistols during their leisure hours for firing 
useless shots at the birds of prey and the nests, the result 
being that all the raptorial birds become uncommonly shy, 
especially in these forests. 
Close to the head-quarters of the great herds I found many 
large wolf-tracks, and near the path were the remains of a 
mangled lamb. 
The part of the forest which we had now got to harbours 
