GOLDEN EAGLE. 
AQUILA CIIRYSAETUS . 
For years we have been told that this species was rapidly disappearing from the British Islands ; but those 
who are well acquainted with the Highlands of Scotland will easily call to mind scores of glens where the 
bird may still he found as wild and untamed as were his ancestors before the rage for excessive game- 
preserving set in and drove the survivors to the forests and the more remote ranges. So long as deerstalking 
remains as a sport, and the quiet and solitude of the forests are guarded as jealously as they now are, there is 
no fear that the Golden Eagle will become a scarce bird. The crow of the Grouse-cock, or a startled hare 
hounding up the mountain-side, pausing again and again to watch the cause of its alarm, have given warning 
to many a noble stag of the approaching stalker ; and as the increase of both species is supposed to he checked 
by the Eagle, care is taken that his eyrie in the forest he not disturbed. Where the hillside is under sheep 
the case is totally different. The shepherd in nearly every district in the highlands is the worst enemy to the 
Eagle ; perhaps for the protection of his flock, hut more probably for the sake of the money he can make by 
the sale of the eggs to dealers or collectors, he will contrive by some means or other to rob every nest that 
is placed on his beat. Active and surefooted as a mountain-goat, there arc few precipices he will not succeed 
in scaling, though, should the rock prove too steep for him to climb unaided, there are always ropes kept 
at the large farms for rescuing sheep from the dangerous and almost inaccessible ledges to which they may 
have picked their way in search of grass when food is short ; and by means of these, and with the help of one or 
two hands from a neighbouring beat, securely placed indeed must bo the nest that escapes him. 
I should be of opinion that it is seldom a straggler is now found on this side of the border, • though 
hardly a season passes without attention is drawn to the fact, in some county paper, that a magnificent 
specimen of the Golden Eagle lias been obtained in the district ; this, in every case I have investigated, 
has turned out to be the Sea-Eagle. On more than one occasion I have brought down on my head the 
indignation of the “fortunate possessor” for daring to hint that his specimen was not what he fondly believed 
it to be. 
_ Alth °ugh his greatest admirers cannot deny that he will occasionally carry off a lamb, the Golden 
is in many districts considered far less destructive on a sheep-farm than the White-tailed Eagle. I do 
not think this species does any very great amount of damage to Grouse where hares or rabbits are plentiful 
In one or two instances I have known him to take such a fancy to the newly-dropped fawns of the roedeer, 
that no young were reared in the district for a couple of seasons; but, as a rule, I am convinced that Grey 
Crows and Peregrines arc far more destructive to all winged game. Now and then, when grouse-shootm- I 
have had a wounded bird that was falling at a distance carried off in front of me ; but to my mind the loss was 
amply attoned for by the sight. I also remember, after a heavy shot at Wigcon with a punt-gun, one winter 
on a nver in the north of Scotland, seeing an Eagle dash down from the sky after a bird that had separated 
from the flock and was blindly making its way uphill; before being overtaken it fell dead into a patch of 
