150 
EAGLE. 
leaving only one addled egg behind. The old Eagles being so furious 
as to create serious alarm, neither the nest nor colour of the egg were 
noticed. Some fragments of flesh were in the nest. 
The Eaglets were covered with a glossy, dark, miirry-coloured down. 
A basket was attached to the ropes that conveyed the men down : into 
this the young birds were put ; but from the violence and amazing 
strength of the parent birds, they were with difficulty carried oif. These 
birds were not twelve months old when we received them. On their 
first moulting they became much darker, particularly about the breast 
and thighs, the latter almost wholly of a dusky black. At two years old 
the base- of the bill became yellow : in the third year there was not any 
material change. At this time one of them killed and devoured the 
other, probably from some neglect in feeding them, as before that event 
they lived together in perfect harmony. 
The bill of this bird is rather longer, and more straight towards the 
base, than is usual with this tribe, a circumstance, probably, which in- 
duced Linnaeus to class it with the vulture ; but as no part of its head 
or neck is bare of feathers, the characteristic mark of that genus, we 
have followed the example of later authors, and continued it amongst the 
Eagle or falcon genus. It inhabits Scotland and the Orkneys, from 
which place an acquaintance of ours had two taken from a nest in the 
highest cliffs in that island, in which there were three young. Latham 
says, that Dr. Heysham informed him of a nest of one of this species, 
near Keswick, in Cumberland, in which was found a trout, weighing 
about twelve pounds ; and between the upper and lower lakes of Killar- 
ney, is a rock called the Eagle’s nest, originating from the circumstance 
of its breeding there annually. The bird mentioned by Dr. Heysham 
was obtained alive, and had been in his possession about ten years 
when he communicated the circumstance to Latham. In that bird it 
was six or seven years before the tail became white ; those from which 
our description is taken were about three years old. 
From the astonishing height these and some other birds fly, we are 
led to believe that they are capable of living in a much lighter atmos- 
phere than any other animals. From the top of some of the highest 
mountains in Scotland, we have seen several of them soaring together 
at so great a distance as to appear scarce larger than a swallow. It is 
said to prey indiscriminately on land animals, fish, and aquatic birds, 
and probably every animal of inferior strength suffers from its rapacity. 
Two of this species contending in the air over Loch Lomond, in 
the Scottish Highlands, became so firmly grappled to each other by 
their talons, that they were precipitated into the water. The upper- 
