THE NODD Y . 
403 
sometimes the parent birds are obliged to hunt daily. Young 
eagles are voracious beings, and if there be no sheep flocks 
within reach, the task of supplying them with food is a very 
heavy one, especially when they have nearly attained maturity. 
In feeding its young for the first few weeks of their life, the 
eagle tears the prey into little pieces, and impartially distributes 
the bleeding morsels to the gaping and screaming offspring. 
Afterwards, however, when the young eagles have gained 
strength of beak, the prey is merely dropped near them, and 
they tear it to pieces for themselves. 
Generally the nest of the Eagle is placed in some inaccessible 
spot, and the bird seems never to be so pleased as when it can 
find a rocky ledge situated about half-way down a precipice, 
and sheltered from above by a large projecting piece of rock. 
This projection answers two purposes. It prevents the nest 
from being seen from above, and also guards it from being 
harried by persons let down by ropes. To take an Eagle’s-nest 
is always a task of extreme difficulty, and one which tries to 
the utmost the nerves and endurance of the climber. It also 
makes considerable demands on his courage, for if the parent 
birds should discover the intruder, they are sure to attack him, 
and may very probably dash him to the ground. 
Should the bold cragsman succeed in reaching the nest, he 
does not find it a very pleasant locality. The nostrils of the 
Eagle are very useful for the purpose of respiration, but the 
bird has apparently little or no olfactory sensibilities. The 
stench that arises from an inhabited Eagle’s-nest is quite beyond 
the power of description, for the young Eagles themselves are 
not the sweetest beings in the world, and their evil odour is 
supplemented by that which arises from the refuse food that is 
suffered to putrefy in the very nest. 
There are very many sea-birds which hatch their young on 
the shelves of precipitous rocks, and of them I have chosen for 
an example the bird which is called the Noddy (A nous stolidus ). 
It is a species of Tern, and has long been celebrated among 
d d 2 
