— 477 — 



noisy and turbulent, flying more swiftly than at other 

 times, alighting more frequently and evincing a fretful- 

 ness which is not so observable after their eggs are laid." 



Samuels add : " The golden eagle usually constructs 

 its nests on the sides of steep, rocky crags, where its 

 materials are coarsely heaped together on a projecting 

 shelf of rock. These consist of large sticks loosely 

 arranged. In rare instances, they are said to have been 

 built on trees in the Western States, where rocky cliffs 

 are not to be met with. The eggs are usually three in 

 number, sometimes two or only one. Mr. Audubon 

 describes them as measuring "three and a half inches 

 in length by two and a half in breadth, the shell thick 

 and smooth, dull white brushed over the undefined 

 patches of brown, which are most numerous at the large 

 end." 



Buffon, Audubon, Alexander Wilson, MacGilvray, 

 have each written most elaborate descriptions of this 

 royal bird, though Buffo n's, with its graceful imagery, 

 is more picturesque than exact. MacGilvray writes : 

 " Many years after having ascended to the summit of 

 one of the lofty mountains in the forest of Harris, in 

 search of plants (for I had by this time become a 

 botanist), I stood to admire the glorious scene that pre- 

 sented itself, and enjoy the most intense of all delights, 

 that of communion in the wilderness with the God of 

 the Universe. I was on a narrow ridge of rock, covered 

 with the Silene Acaulis, whose lovely pink blossoms 

 were strewn around ; on one side was a rocky slope, 

 the resort of the ptarmigan ; on the other a rugged pre- 

 cipice, in the crevices of which had sprung up luxuriant 

 tufts of Rhodiola rosea. 



Before me, in the west, was the craggy island of 

 Scarp ; toward the south, stretched the rugged coast of 

 Harris, margined on the headlands with a line of white 

 foam, and away to the dim horizon spread out the vast 

 expanse of the Atlantic Ocean,* with the lovely isles of 

 St. Kilda on the extreme verge. The sun, descending 



