426 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 
Eagle (Aquila imperialis), the lesser relative of the “ Stein” 
Eagle. In vain I searched for it in the great virgin forests 
of Southern Hungary north of the Draueck, as well as in the 
woods to the west of the Danube below Mohacs. Not once 
did I even see it circling aloft ; I was, however, told by the 
keepers that isolated couples often built their nests in the 
great oak woods to the south-west of Mohdacs, but, as I have 
already said, I could not personally verify the statement. 
It was some distance above Futak that I first saw the 
Imperial Eagle. The bird was cruising over the Danube, 
and from the steamer I observed several others of the same 
species as they were setting out in the morning from the 
wooded mountains of Slavonia towards the plains of the 
Hungarian side of the river, in search of plunder. In the 
true Syrmian mountains of the Vrdnik or Fruska-Gora there 
are many nests of the Imperial Eagle; but there it selects 
the low outlying hills and the woods bordering the plains in 
preference to the beech-forests which cover the higher moun- 
tains, and though I certainly found a few nests among the 
mountains, I met with it more frequently at lower elevations. 
The reason of this is pretty clear: the ziesel forms its 
chief food, an observation that was also made by Brehm on 
the steppes of Siberia. One can easily see what a vital 
necessity this little rodent is to the Imperial Eagle, and as it 
is, of course, only found among fields, meadows, and heaths, 
the eagles prefer to settle in the woods of the cultivated 
country and the outlying hills. 
The seven nests of this eagle which I saw were all placed 
on oaks, some of them on thin saplings, for while the other 
eagles, even the small ones such as the Osprey, the Pygmy, 
and the Spotted, all show fastidious caution in picking out old 
and lofty trees on which to construct their dwellings, the 
Imperial appears to content itself with any tree that it hap- 
pens to find. The nest itself, compared with those of other 
