186 



BIRDS, 



birds would fairly represent the population. This is, however, more 

 likely to be under-estimated than over-estimated. It should be 

 remembered, however, that about 1870 or thereby "White-tailed 

 Eagles were greatly more abundant, but great slaughter was 

 carried on at the time that sheep-farming was at the height of its 

 vigour. Since then — and it may be reckoned for general purposes 

 that it was concurrent with the decline of sheep-farming in the 

 Highlands, and the afforesting of large tracts for deer — the Golden 

 Eagle again became commoner and commoner, until at the present 

 day once more they threaten to become a serious pest, and no 

 longer require the legislature to step in for their preservation. 

 Such legislation carried too far closely approximates to a form of 

 " grandmotherliness." Proprietors may indeed now be left im- 

 fettered to judge for themselves how far they may be allowed to 

 increase or to check unnecessary increase. 



In the eastern parts of our area there are still some Eagles' 

 residences, but they are not yet so common there as further west. 

 In the Eev. H. A. Macpherson's MS. there is an account of two 

 eyries within two miles of Glen Shee, which existed about 1870. 

 About that time a keeper killed the old hen and two young, and 

 these were all stuffed at Blaircrowrie. This was related to Eev. 

 H. A. Macpherson by an old resident of the glen, who in 1901 was in 

 his ninetieth year when he gave the above particulars. 



VTe can, however, go further back for records in the north-east, as 

 Don in 1813 speaks of their breeding in Glen Clova at that time. 

 Xor need we go far from that at the present day to find a pair 

 still occupying an eyrie in one of the neighbouring glens which form, 

 as it were, the hollows between the giant ribs of the Grampian range 

 in the north-east. Eagles, when in search of prey, usually follow the 

 sky-lines, hunting the higher grounds for their favourite food. Blue or 

 White Hares. 



"About 1850," as Mr. Dewar informed the Eev. H. A. Macpherson 

 on May 23, 1901, on the occasion of that gentleman's first visit to 

 him,^ "there was then living at Taymouth an old keeper who did 

 more than any one else to exterminate Eagles, Martins, Foumarts, etc. 

 He had covered the walls and ceiling of a room with their remains." 

 Eagles were much more numerous when Mr. P. Dewar was a lad. 



^ The Rev. H. A. Macpherson tirst visited Mr. D. Dewar, Remony, on '23rd May 

 19<)1. He says of him then : "Mr. Dewar of Remony, who contribnted so many birds 

 to the Perth Museum, a smart, thick-set, active man, grey but not old, who talks frtely 

 of what old keepers told him when he was a lad about 1850,'" etc. 



