444 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 
kill, except when nesting, and it is not until the districts 
where it breeds are visited that one finds out how numerous 
Sea-Hagles are, even at the present day. 
Keepers living on the Danube not far from Draueck have 
told me that in July, when the fledgling eagles are making 
their first excursion along the river, and are still very awk- 
ward at hunting and fishing, they congregate in the auen 
among the smaller arms of the Danube, so that when the 
water subsides, after the yearly spring inundations, they may 
catch the fish that are swimming about in the shallows. At 
that time incredible numbers of old and young Sea-Hagles 
are said to collect within a small area; and if the keepers 
knew what to do with them, and did not grudge their am- 
munition, they could, by hiding themselves on one of the 
arms of the river, kill, in a single morning, ten or twelve of 
these birds as they fly up and down the water. 
The young Sea-Hagle is not particularly shy, for it does 
not yet know what danger is, and being clumsy and heavy 
dislikes changing its position often, and so allows itself to be 
closely approached ; but the old bird, that has already travelled 
much and has, while ranging about the most varied districts 
of Central Europe, often heard the shot sing past him, is one 
of the wariest of creatures. Most of these old winter visitors 
can only be killed by employing the Eagle-Owl, and some of 
them even understand the owl and the decoy-hut, and scru- 
pulously avoid both. I have seen Sea-Hagles sitting a few 
hundred paces from a carcass and constantly looking at it, 
but never allowing themselves to be deluded into coming 
down to it. The easiest but most unsportsmanlike way of 
getting hold of them is by poison, laying out poisoned rabbits, 
for instance, by the banks of rivers. By this means Sea- 
Eagles are destroyed every winter along the Danube between 
Vienna and Pressburg. 
The change in the colour of its plumage which every Sea- 
