THE EAGLES 79 



best way would be to steal the ravenous babies and spare 

 the parents. 



This proved to be "easier said than done." The nest 

 was in a most inaccessible position. But a long new cart 

 rope, specially purchased in Edinburgh, enabled the writer 

 to be lowered over the cliff and let down to a ledge, some 

 eight or ten feet wide, on which the Eagles had built their 

 nest. He confesses that had he known the diificulty and 

 danger attending such an adventure a thousand pounds 

 would hardly have tempted him to undertake it. 



Here is a picture of what he saw on the ledge. " In 

 the centre of it lay a great number of sticks, some of them 

 of large size, being fully six feet long, and at one end 

 nearly as thick as a man's wrists. Some of the smaller 

 branches were Scotch fir and must have been carried a 

 long distance. Among the sticks was entwined a stag's 

 antler. The lining of the nest was composed of heather, 

 grass and wool. 



" In the centre of the nest, closely huddled together, 

 were two wee downy eaglets, evidently only recently 

 hatched. A few yards off I saw what was evidently the 

 larder of previous years, as the bleached remains of lambs, 

 fawns, hares, rabbits, and different game birds were 

 thickly strewn around ; while a grouse plucked and 

 partly devoured lay nearer the nest." 



The explorer of the eyrie, who related his adventure 

 about four years ago in the ScotsTuan, put an eaglet into 

 each of his coat-pockets, and was drawn up the precipice. 

 "For a short distance I had no footing. The rope began 

 to spin round, and I was rather roughly jolted against the 

 rock, with the result that both eaglets were killed. I 

 brought them home, however, and they may now be seen, 

 stuffed, in the Royal Scottish Museum." 



