84 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



overlapping piece of cliff, about nine hundred feet high " — 

 not to be got at by the cleverest rock-climber in the world. 



"One afternoon, whilst rambling along this piece of 

 coast I noticed the Eagle about four hundred yards 

 distant, standing in solitary grandeur on a nose-shaped 

 rock, the highest point of a gigantic cliflf. ... I actually 

 got within a few yards of him, from which distance, 

 crouched behind a convenient boulder, I watched him for 

 fully ten minutes. . . . Presently, he must have fancied 

 something wrong, but he was by no means startled. He 

 simply expanded his ample wings, and, dropping leisurely 

 off the pinnacle, slid over me within fifteen yards, bending 

 his broad head down to stare at the disturber of the peace." 



The usual note of the Golden Eagle, says Mr. Charles 

 Dixon, who has seen much of him, is a yelping or barking 

 cry. It is rarely uttered, but when heard it has mostly 

 been in the early morning, or when the great bird is 

 provoked past endurance by smaller birds who combine to 

 mob him. 



Outside the British Isles the Golden Eagle is to be met 

 with in most of the mountainous parts of Europe and 

 North Africa, as well as right across Asia to Kamtchatka 

 and Japan. And it is also found in the northern parts of 

 North America. 



In Turkestan this Eagle is put to the same use as the 

 falcon was by English gentlefolk in the days of Good 

 Queen Bess and many a king and queen before her. 

 Captain H. Bower, in the Geographical Journal, has the 

 following note on the fact : — 



" At the place where we camped after descending from 

 the pass, a shepherd resided who owned a fine Golden 

 ■Eagle. These Eagles are much used for hunting gazelle, 

 foxes and hares in the flat covmtry through which the 



