ON ORNITHOLOGY. 427 
raptorial birds, is not large—strikingly small indeed, consider- 
ing the size of its owner, and built in what I should call 
a very slovenly manner. 
At all the nests of the Imperial Eagle I found whole colo- 
nies of Tree-Sparrows, which fluttered round the abode of 
their mighty landlord, chirping loudly. I have also observed 
them at the nests of the Sea-Hagle, but not in such numbers. 
The Imperial Hagle is shy and knows how to get out 
of the way in good time; it is, however, by no means 
difficult to kill it at the nest, for it does not exhibit the 
great and often marvellous cireumspection of the Sea-Eagle. 
Ii is true that at one’s first approach it leaves its abode 
sooner and more quickly than that bird, but it soon appears 
again and flies straight back to it, quite oblivious of the 
sportsman. 
This species is very common in the large woods of stunted 
trees which extend over the perfectly level country near Titel, 
above the junction of the Theiss with the Danube. There it 
is, so to speak, the characteristic bird of the district, and there 
also its principal food is the ziesel, which is so destructive to 
the fields that it inhabits in multitudes. 
In that locality I saw an Imperial Hagle’s nest at the edge 
of a large wood, and not more than three hundred paces dis- 
tant from a road on which there was plenty of traffic. It 
was placed on a low slender oak, and the birds being accus- 
tomed to the sight of people were naturally very tame, so 
that we had only to wait a few minutes before we killed the 
old and finely plumaged female. 
In the beginning of May I still found Imperial Hagles 
engaged in the building of their nests. Others were sitting 
on their eggs, and some even had young. ‘These eaglets, 
however, were still in down, and so small that it would 
have been impossible to rear any of them. At one nest, 
which was situated in a remote valley of the Fruska-Gora 
