BIRDS. 
not inaccessible, though nearly so. Some years ago one of 
the birds from this nest was destroyed by a well-known writer 
on Highland sports ; since then the remaining bird has not 
taken to itself another partner. In 1850 white-tailed eagles 
bred in Aardvaar, Assynt, and in West Cromarty (WoU. 
E.-B., iii. p. 461). John Sutherland of Inchnadamph 
writes also to Mr. Wolley on 7th July 1851: "I have 
destroyed all the golden eagles that used to breed in this 
part of the country. Last winter I killed twelve eagles in 
the Assynt district." In the east there is no eyrie known 
to us in Sutherland. *An albino variety of this bird was 
killed at Achinduich, in the parish of Lairg, in IsTovember 
1859. The last specimen we handled from this locality 
was killed in spring, about the year 1872, at Kintradwell ; 
another, killed in the spring of 1882 at Durness, came into 
Inverness for preservation. 
In 1849 Mr. W. Dunbar offered 10s. each for eagles 
throughout the county of Sutherland ; and Bantock — at 
that time gamekeeper to the Duke of Sutherland — 10s. 
each for eggs. In 1849, when Wolley was in Sutherland, 
white-tailed eagles were much more abundant, and fre- 
quented many inland localities. They bred on " Sal-en- 
geyers," a rock on Ben Hee, which is at least ten miles 
from the sea, and there used to be a nest on an island on 
Loch Flag in long heather. " The young of this latter nest 
were taken three or four years ago by a Mr. Gilchrist, and 
birds had not bred there since " (Wolley's Egg-Books, and 
Ooth. Wolley ana, p. 52). 
In 1868 Mr. Osborne speaks of this species as a commoner 
bird in the county than the former, having bred for a long 
time back in the cliffs at Dunnet Head. Another breeding- 
place, now for some years deserted, was at the cliffs of the 
Ord, in the south-east of the county. The white-tailed 
eagle only occasionally visits the inland districts of the 
east coast. One is noted, quite as a rarity, by Mr. Osborne 
