96 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Hawks or Falcons — Merlins, I take them to be — before-men- 

 tioned. They dash fiercely at the clamouring bird, coming 

 down, like little, black, angry arrows, almost upon him, shooting 

 up again, when just beyond his reach, wheeling and again 

 shooting down. The Eagle, for his part, gets angry too. He 

 bends his great bill against his small, would-be assailants, 

 lunges up at them, as they descend, and even sometimes makes 

 a jump, to meet them. The Merlins draw off, after a time, 

 return, with fresh anger, upon a fresh vociferation, and then 

 desist as if it was no use. A little afterwards the Eagles 

 adjourn to a much nearer promontory, offering a flatter and 

 more commodious space, and here they stand quite close to- 

 gether, preening themselves, and sometimes, perhaps, bestowing 

 a touch with the beak on one another, but of this I cannot be 

 sure. Their actions show affection, but seem to have no more 

 special import. Before this, they have sat with a space of a few 

 yards between them. 



At 8.16 one of the pair flaps heavily up, and at once broods 

 the eggs. At 9 the other Eagle flies past the nest, turns and 

 flies back past it. He makes the squeaking note, as he passes, 

 and, on coming down upon a grey spike of rock which I have 

 sometimes mistaken for himself, indulges in the guttural 

 " pudja." This Eagle is browner than the other one, the head 

 less white, and the white not so far extended downwards. I 

 take him to be the male and the younger of the two, yet the 

 bill is much lighter, not of nearly so vivid a yellow. The body, 

 but not the bill, of the female seems faded with age. 



At 9.15 or thereabouts, on looking again through the window 

 of the tent, I find that the sitting Eagle has joined her mate, 

 and stands perched close beside him, on another spike of rock. 

 Both birds, now, as I have the glasses upon them, throw up 

 their heads, and clamour, together, in the way that the one has 

 formerly done. Again it is a fine, wild sight, but the cries 

 themselves are not of a grand-sounding or impressive character. 

 The cry of the Great Black-backed Gull, when thus vociferating, 

 has a wilder and more spirit-stirring ring in it. They, too, 

 throw up their heads and shriek, together, in just the same way, 

 presenting, then, so fine an appearance as accuses all who speak 

 disrespectfully of this species— and there is none towards whom 



