420 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 
Of Lower Austria I can speak from my own experience 
and from many personal observations, for in this part of the 
country I was even lucky enough to kill a very large 
“Stein” Eagle. In the whole neighbourhood of Vienna it 
is one of the regularly recurring sights, and in all the pre- 
serves among the auen of the Danube, as well as in the 
Wiener- Wald and the open country, most of the keepers have 
tales to relate of what has happened to them in their encounters 
with these eagles. Several have already been shot in the 
little pheasant-preserves near Laxenburg, and between 1840 
and 1850 many of these noble birds were killed in the 
Imperial park, which they used to frequent as long as there 
was a large slaughter-house close beside the wall near Upper 
St. Veit. Even now, young eagles may be seen cruising 
above the meadows, attracted by the abundance of game. 
Thus, for instance, in July 1878 a “Stein” Eagle took up 
its abode within the park for three weeks, and in the 
middle of September I saw one circling high above that 
locality. 
Certain spots are specially affected by these eagles, because 
they are well situated, abound in game, and are quiet. To 
such localities they come year after year, and often remain 
a considerable time. There is, for example, a fir-wood near 
Ganserndorf, in Lower Austria, which, being well stocked 
with hares and rabbits, is a regular hunting-ground of the 
“Stein”? Kagle. In autumn, when work in the fields is over 
and large flights of wild geese pitch on them every evening, 
the eagles also appear, and stay for days and even weeks. 
Others then relieve them, but there are often a good many 
there at the same time, and so it goes on until the middle of 
March. 
This locality is well peopled ; several villages lie in its 
immediate neighbourhood ; roads and railways run past it ; 
the wood is not large, and the only positions which afford the 
