ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 93 



sitting against a great rock, near the tent, as I make this entry, 

 one of the latter passes me quite close, over the water, at about 

 the same height as I sit, on flapping wings — flapping con- 

 tinuously, as a Book flaps his — and, without appearing to notice 

 me, flaps straight for a promontory, round which he disappears. 

 "Oh, the difference of man and man" ! and, no less, of Eagle 

 and Eagle, or of the same Eagle, at different times. Flying 

 like this, he looked no more than a large brown bird plodding — 

 yes, plodding laboriously along — that ever I should write so of 

 such a bird as he has been ! This was at 7.30. From then till 

 now, at 8.10, all is still, and not a sign of either of the Eagles. 

 At 10, however, one of them goes off the eyrie, and again I notice 

 the fallen manner of its flight, for instead of floating lightly and 

 grandly, as before, this bird now — no longer an Eagle — gives a 

 series of flaps with the wings, at short intervals, and only floats, 

 or, rather, just holds itself up with them, for a few seconds, 

 between each series. I cannot, at first, understand this sad 

 change, but, all at once, it occurs to me that the wind has sunk 

 since the early morning, and that it is now a dead calm. This 

 then, evidently, is the explanation. Wind is necessary ; not 

 even an Eagle can float or soar in a motionless atmosphere. To 

 do so, probably, on a morning like this, it would have to ascend 

 into the upper air-currents, which is not now convenient for it. 

 These lords of the winds, then, are reduced to flapping, on a 

 calm day. 



Almost as soon as the Eagle leaves her eyrie, she is pursued 

 by Gulls — always the Black-backed kind, I have seen no others 

 on the lake — and, perhaps to avoid them, settles on a favourite 

 promontory of both the birds, and, unless it is the other of the 

 pair, is still there when I re-enter the tent, about 11 ; but I 

 cannot make out any bird on the nest. Towards 11.30 she flies 

 off over the brow of the hill, and I then go to sleep till about 

 1 p.m. The nest is then still empty — whether it has been 

 occupied for any time in the interval, I cannot, of course, say. 

 At 2 or 2.30, the bird — it is always the same one, and 

 the female — comes down by it, but it is only to fly off again. 

 There is now a long, dreary interval — nothing is more dreary 

 than sitting in a tent, and seeing nothing — till almost 5, when 

 the Eagle floats grandly up (the wind has, for some time, been 



