12 
FALCONIDiE. 
lar horizontal route. It is common for eagles to have 
several favourite places in different quarters, and they 
frequently repair two or three nests before malting a 
final choice of one in which to lay their eggs. The 
same individuals will select very different situations. I 
am told of a pair which alternate between a crag quite 
impregnable and a corner into which a child might 
climb; but, besides this general change of quarters, the 
exact site of the nest is often altered from year to year, 
so that three or four of different ages may be seen within 
a few yards of each other, and of such I once saw a 
recently-repaired one, besides that actually occupied; 
yet some favourite eyries are used for a number of years 
in succession, ten, twelve, or more years I have often 
heard mentioned by experienced highlanders other rocks 
which have scarcely been without eagles in the memory 
of man. It is evident that they are influenced more by 
the seclusion than by the inaccessibility of the spot they 
choose. They do not care for foxes, which often make 
their earths so as to be conveniently near the well-known 
larder.” 
1,4 A more likely rock for an eyrie is a much subdivided 
one with grassy ledges and well-sheltered corners, than 
one with a great perpendicular face. Two of the eggs 
which Mr. Hewitson proposes to figure were, however, 
in a crag some hundreds of feet in height, and there 
was scarcely a platform sufficient to support the nest, 
which, as usual in such cases, was of great size; I know 
of two or three other similar eyries. The nest itself is 
made first of sticks, sometimes in a great mass, but in 
other situations even quite dispensed with ; where they 
are used in quantity a few of the largest may be nearly 
an inch in diameter; upon the sticks is heather, that at 
the top newly gathered, and in one instance partiv re- 
