comparatively unmolested, the nest is often to be met
with on trees, sometimes on bushes, and occasionally
even on the ground; it is built of sticks, piled on year
after year as the exigencies of time and weather may
require, and lined with grasses, moss, and fern. John
Wolley, as quoted in the 4th edition of Yarrell, says
that, in the many nests of this species found by him in
Scotland, Luzula sylvatica wTas always made use of, but
I never had the good fortune to see a nest at close
quarters in that country. The eggs are generally laid
in March, two in number, and are pure white. Immature
birds of this species are very frequently met with
in autumn and winter on the east coast of England, and
not very uncommonly inland, and are easily shot or
trapped; in a great many instances these occurrences
are recorded in the local newspapers as those of
“ Magnificent Golden Eagles which have been devastating
&c. &c.” These wandering Eagles, as a matter
of fact, subsist principally upon rabbits and any dead
animal substances that they can find. I have seen this
bird several times in Scotland, more frequently on the
west coast of Ireland, and often on the Turkish shores
of the Adriatic; in the latter localities it seemed to prey
principally upon white mullet and bass captured in the
shallow bays and lagoons, and also to a great extent on
the carcases of cattle left to rot on the plains. I have
also, on several occasions, seen a White-tailed Eagle
stoop at swimming water-fowl, but only once witnessed
a capture of this kind; the old Eagles were generally
observed either sitting motionless on a dead bough of
some lofty tree in the marshes, or soaring high in the