15^ Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
It breeds still more sparingly in Western Donegal, and prob- 
ably in Western Galway and Kerry, but it has ceased to breed, 
as formerly, in Antrim, Tyrone, Down, Tipperary, Waterford, 
Leitrim, and Sligo, but visits the mountainous parts of these 
counties occasionally.” 
Range outside tlie Britisli Islands. — The Golden Eagle is found 
throughout the mountains of Europe and Northern Africa, and 
extends to the extreme east of Asia, as far as Kamtchatka and 
the Japanese Islands. It also breeds in the Himalayas. Many 
races or sub-species have been recognised, chiefly by the late 
Dr. SevertEov and the Russian naturalists, but I have never 
been able to recognise more than one species of Golden Ea^le, 
though in some localities the birds are larger and darker than 
in others, but the supposed differences in the amount of white 
on the tail- and body-feathers are dependent, I am certain, solely 
on the age of the individuals, and are never specific. 
In North America the Golden Eagle is found in the moun- 
tainous regions of the northern parts, but has not yet been 
noticed in Greenland, 
HaBits.— Owing to the destruction which this large Eagle is 
capable of committing on sheep-farms, the bird has been shot 
and trapped almost to extinction in the British Islands. The 
principal food of the Golden Eagle in Scotland is the Blue 
or Mountain Hare, and it also captures rabbits or an occa- 
sional Grouse, while it is well known that it will devour carrion, 
which propensity often leads to its being taken in traps. The 
flight of a Golden Eagle is certainly a wonderful sight to see 
according to all observers, and I have seen nothing finer than 
the flight of the Eagles in the Himalayas (probably Imperial 
Eagles), soaring round and round, high in the air, without any 
apparent motion of the wings, the ends of which are slightly 
upturned in soaring, so that daylight can be seen between the 
tips of the long primaries. Then follow a few rapid beats of 
the wings, and then another round of circular movements 
until the bird winds itself out of sight or tops the mountain 
crest into the next valley. Sometimes the bird will sit motion- 
less on a rock or favourite perch for hours, but it is when 
the Golden Eagle is on the wing, that we can understand 
why its majestic movements inspired the idea that it was the 
