86 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



a great extent, of this not an autumn passes without the appearance 

 of eagles in this country being noticed in the papers. Most of 

 these records come from our Eastern counties because the birds 

 have arrived from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. " Golden 

 Eagles " they are often called, but they almost always prove to be 

 immature specimens of the Sea-Eagle. Conversely the occasional 

 immature Golden Eagle is described as the White-tailed or Sea- 

 Eagle. The confusion arises in this way. The young Sea-Eagle 

 has a dark brown tail, the young Golden Eagle a tail that is half 

 white. Perhaps the easiest point of distinction to remember is 

 this : viz. that the toes of the Sea-Eagle are " scutellated " (like a 

 shrimp) all down the front, while in the case of the Golden Eagle, 

 these scales or shields are reduced to three in number, situate at 

 the distal or claw end of the toe, and the rest of the toe is 

 " reticulate." The outer toe of the Sea-Eagle can be indepen- 

 dently moved, and so approaches the reversible condition of this 

 toe in the Osprey. 



Few English birds — none, perhaps, but the cuckoo — have so 

 strongly marked an identity as the Osprey ; none, surely, have 

 quite the same touch of romance. Lingering in Scotland still (it 

 never nested in Ireland, and that in itself is strange and eclectic), 

 it affects for its nesting-place a deserted ruin on an island in a 

 loch, not always, but often, and in one most notable instance. 

 In this particular case the eyrie is a structure of immense propor- 

 tion, the accumulation of years and years. There seems to be 

 very good evidence that the Osprey has really been seen to dis- 

 appear under the water in its pursuit of fish, but the writer is bound 

 to admit that he cannot answer for this from personal observation. 



