LOUD LILFOUI) ON UAPTOUIAL UIRDS IN TUB: LILFORD AVIARIES. 5G5 
waistcoat, in dangerous pro.Kimity to the jugular vein, and would, 
I am persuaded, have soon killed him, had not assistance been 
promptly rendered. Since that time she has remained somewhat 
savage, though she allows her keepers to clean out her abode 
without molestation. She is not particular as to food, but, I 
think, prefers live Bream to anything else that we have oflered 
to her. The only other bird of this species that I ever kept at 
Tdlford for any considerable period of time, was caught by a man 
employed in trimming a fence, not far from Oundlo, in the winter 
of 187f). This bird had been wounded in one thigh, which was 
badly fractured; and, as we subsefiuently discovered, a shot pellet 
had also struck the skull just above one of the eyes. The thigh 
sot itself, with some clumsy a8si.stanco, and the bird was able 
to rest upon the injureil limb and use the foot, but remained 
subject to occasional lits of vertigo, and died about three 
years after its capture without having a.ssumeil any feathers of 
the mature dress. 
Since 1853 1 have never hoen without one or two living 
Golden Eagles. The two of that species now at Lilford were taken 
from a nest in the highlands of Inverness in 1877, and are, I 
believe, a pair. Be this as it may, one of them laid an egg last 
year (1887), on INlarch 29th, without making any nest. Both birds 
became very savage when the egg was approached, but broke it in 
a few days ; they then made a largo nest, but did not lay in it. 
This year (TS88) I lu’ard from the man in charge of the aviaries 
that those Eagles completed a nest of sticks, wool, and dry grass, 
about March 20th. The lirst egg was laid on April 2nd, but broken 
a day or two afterwards. A second “hue egg” was laid on the 5th, 
upon which the Eagle at once began to sit. Xo Golden Eagle 
had ever laid at Lilford before the first above-mentioned instance. 
I do not consider that these two Eagles acquired their fully mature 
plumage till 1884, when they had completed their seventh year. 
I brought a young Golden Eagle taken from a nest in a Pino tree 
near San Ildefonso in 18G5 to Lilford, and placed it with a Scotch 
specimen of about four years old. As the Spanish bird advanced in 
years, although it moulted normally every year, I was very much 
struck by the great difference in build and general aspect between 
it and the British Eagle, its companion in captivit}*. In total 
length there was very little apparent difference; but the neck and 
