168 ornithologist's text-book. 



show at once that the bird, however large it may 

 be, is not the Golden Eagle. On the other hand, 

 while the Golden Eagle is in the young plumage 

 and the feathers of the tail are partly white, forming 

 what has been called the ' Ringtail,' the bill, the 

 down on the tarsi, and the deep brown bar on the 

 end of the tail, together with the whole air of the 

 bird, point out at once that it is the Golden Eagle^ 

 Give it but its form and expression, and no matter 

 though the colour white, black, or even green, the 

 Golden Eagle would never be mistaken for any 

 other bird, any more than a friend, of whose per^ 

 son, air, and gait, we had a complete knowledge, 

 would be lost to our recollection, or changed to 

 another person by merely putting on a dress of a 

 different colour, 



" The Golden Eagle is now rare in England, if 

 indeed it be found there at all ; and even in the 

 Highlands of Scotland it is by no means common, 

 and its eyrie at least is confined to the most wild 

 and inaccessible places of the mountains, and only 

 in those places that are cliffy and precipitous. I 

 have seen Eagles beating about in the higher glens 

 of the rivers that rise on the south-east side of the 

 Grampians. I know that one pair, at least, nestle 

 somewhere in the high cliff called Wallace's Craig, 

 on the north side of Lochlee, and another some- 

 where in Craig Muskeldie, on the south side of the 

 same. I have observed the four all in the sky at 

 one time ; and I for some time wrote with a quill 

 which dropt from one of their wings in the autumn 

 of 1819. An intelligent farmer who had resided 

 all his days on the spot, assured me that the Wal- 

 lace Craig Eagles had been known in the days of 

 his grandfather, (the people there are rather famed 

 for longevity, though the sun does not shine on the 

 lake for several weeks at mid- winter), but these on 

 the south side were not such old settlers, and they 



