THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
which were no worse for my shooting. On July 25, 1899, I found a young 
bird in down in a nest built in a stunted tree in a gorge in the Point Cloates 
Range. 
“At Broome Hill and throughout the South-west these eagles are stiU 
numerous, but must diminish with increasing settlement. When at Lake 
Muir last year (1911), Mr. A. F. R. Muir told me that he usually poisons 
or shoots about 50 every year, and that his uncle, on the opposite side 
of the Lake, kills about the same number, and has been doing so for 
years. At Broome Hill the eagles make an appearance as soon as the 
lambing season starts, and from May until July they take a heavy toll of 
lambs and ewes that ‘ get down.’ They then seem to go away, probably to 
breed, and come again in diminished numbers in October. On August 6, 
1908, a man and myself were mustering a paddock here when we found two 
eagles had got a three-quarters grown Kangaroo {Macropus giganteus) 
‘ bailed up ’ in a corner. I told the man to keep clear and that I would return 
in the evening and poison the carcass of the kangaroo that I quite expected 
to find laid there. However, at 6 p.m., the kangaroo was still laid there, 
but asleep, flat on the ground in the open. The eagles had left it, and it seemed 
to have just laid down and slept the sleep of exhaustion from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 
I then went on to look at two ewes that we had left in the morning, as they 
could not keep up with other sheep we mustered. I found the eagles had 
kfiled both of them and picked most of the meat off them. I poisoned what 
was left, and going there the next morning found six eagles laid dead. Two 
of them had died on their backs and their comrades had eaten most of 
the breast meat from them ! (cannibals). Four of the birds (not damaged) 
weighed 51 lbs. They measured from 7 ft. to 7 ft. 6 in. across the wings. 
A young male shot here, December 14, 1910, weighed 6 lbs., 6 ft. 5 in. 
expanse. It attacked a hen turkey with brood of young, but the mother 
turkey fought it in defence of her young. These eagles are very partial to 
Turkeys as food. On June 30, 1910, as Mrs. Carter was driving in to the 
township of Broome HiU, along a high road from here, two eagles were 
perched in trees alongside the road. Upon her approach in the buggy with 
pair of horses they came up, and for some distance hovered above the buggy 
and horses as they went along at such a low elevation that Mrs. Carter told 
me she could easily have struck one or both of the birds with the buggy 
whip, but was afraid of the consequences if one had fallen on the horses or 
in the buggy. In my paddocks here were two old nests of eagles, one of 
which was occupied (I was told) about 1900. One of them was high up 
in an immense Yate (?) tree, which blew down three years ago. Upon 
examining the nest on the ground I found numerous bones and skulls of 
