2 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY, 
performed frequently at an immense elevation, when it appears as a 
small speck in the blue sky. It circles round and round, with 
scarcely a movement of the wings, and from its high position 
descends with startling rapidity upon its quarry. When it swoops 
down upon a wallaby, the latter seems paralysed, and thus forms 
aneasy prey. Like the vulture, it delights in carrion; the carcass 
of a horse or a bullock never comes amiss to it. It mostly feeds on 
animals fresh killed, but to the north of Liverpool Plains thirty or 
forty eagles have been seen tearing the body of a dead bullock. 
When gorged, they resort to the nearest trees, and perch there till 
prepared to renew the feast. At this juncture they are not so 
difficult to approach. It is generally seen in pairs. Sturt says that 
two of these birds frequented the Depét Glen, in latitude 29° 40’ and 
longitude 142°, one of which was secured. ‘They generally rested on 
a high pointed rock, whence their glance extended over the whole 
country; and it was only by accident that one was killed. In 
some districts it is more plentiful at one time than at another. 
The two birds seen in the Glen were the only ones observed by Sturt 
in the interior to the north-west of the Barrier or Stanley’s Range. 
He remarks that it is common on the Murray and the Darling, and is 
widely, perhaps universally, distributed over the Australian 
continent. Wedge-tailed eagles are persecuted by the shepherds of 
the squatters, who poison or shoot them on account of the destruc- 
tion they deal out to lambs and poultry. All that has been said 
respecting the courage, power, and rapacity of the golden eagle of 
Europe applies with equal force to the eagle of Australia and Tas- 
mania. Mr. G. Barnard, who found a jabiru’s nest near Rock- 
hampton, noticed that eagles attacked the birds, which ultimately - 
caused them to desert the nest. In the Mudgee district they have 
been seen to attack a foal and full grown kangaroos, two taking 
turns in chasing them. When they are troublesome about stations, 
the aid of strychnine is usually resorted to as the best means of 
getting rid of them. In Tasmania rewards are offered for their 
destruction. They not only destroy large birds, such as the black- 
necked stork, but also prevent them from rearing their young. 
. Nidification.—The nests of these birds are easily found, inas- 
much as they are large structures placed in conspicuous positions, 
They are often three feet high, and consist of a mass of sticks piled 
up between the forks of the topmost branches of the largest 
eucalypti, or are placed at the end of a leaning bough; one was 
seen built in a pine. The lower part of the nest is made of thick 
sticks, smaller ones being used for the top, and the whole is lined 
with twigs and grasses. Bulk rendering concealment impossible, 
difficulty of access procures security from intrusion. ‘The nest is 
not invariably near the top, but always in the most inaccessible 
position. A nest was secured at Cardington, a station on the Bell 
River, near Molong, in August, 1860. It had been built on a fork 
near the end of one of the main branches of a large gum tree. It 
was fully 70 feet from the ground, hence no easy task to gebit. A 
black boy climbed the tree by stepping it. The nest*referred to was 


