line, and about the same height from the ground, until it was lost to sight.

"An occasional Golden Eagle," writes my friend Mr Henry D. Graham, "may still be seen pursuing his lofty course over the moors and mountains of Mull and the surrounding islands. A friend, a few years ago, killed one out of a party of seven-a number which would have been thought deeply significant in the days when augury was a fashionable science. In Jura a pair flew close over my head as I sat on the hill side with a friend and a gamekeeper at luncheon. The two birds sailed slowly past

without deigning to notice us."

Mr Alexander M'Niven, Shemore, lately told me he had seen an eagle this year in somewhat novel circumstances. He was on the banks of Loch Lomond with a party of friends, when their attention was drawn to a squall sweeping down the loch in their direction. Suddenly it burst upon them in all its fury-the darkened sky having an extraordinary appearance as the hail and rain dashed with a loud hissing noise into the loch. In the very front of this tempest cloud there sailed the majestic bird, turning not its flight, but steadily flying before the blast. The whole of the party saw it, and the species was recognized at once by Mr M'Niven, who had frequently seen Golden Eagles before near his own residence. Later still, Mr J. A. Harvie Brown, of Dunipace, has sent me his notes taken in Sutherlandshire up to the close of the nesting season of 1869, in which frequent allusion is made to the flight of this king of birds.

"There are still," writes Mr Brown, "several localities where the Golden Eagle has its eyrie in Sutherlandshire, but of course their numbers have been rapidly on the decrease since Mr Selby visited the county. J. S. assured me that in the short space of three weeks he once killed sixteen adult Golden Eagles and Sea Eagles. I know that one gentleman, who was like ourselves collecting this year in Sutherlandshire, obtained three Golden Eagle's eggs in the north of the county. He bought them from a shepherd who had them in his possession for some time. This does not make it appear that the latest orders will invariably be attended to by shepherds and gamekeepers." While commending this short paragraph to the careful notice of Highland proprietors, I take the opportunity of also drawing their attention to a fact communicated by Mr John Bateson to the Times about a

year ago, namely, that printed lists are actually in circulation among keepers and shepherds in the county referred to, offering large prices for the eggs of birds of prey, and thus opening up a temptation to these men which no amount of care on the part of their employers is ever able to counteract. Nothing but the strongest censure can be meted out to such collectors as would bribe a man in humble circumstances to procure eggs of the Golden or White-tailed Eagles, Kite, or Osprey, at the price of ten pounds for each specimen.

OBS.-It may here be mentioned that the late Mr Thompson, in his work on the Birds of Ireland, has inserted the following notice in the appendix to the third volume regarding the supposed occurrence of the Spotted Eagle (Aquila novia) in the island of Skye:

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'Dunvegan Castle, Skye, October, 1850.-It is not improbable that the Spotted Eagle has occurred in this island. On my questioning Mr Pack (who has been resident here for fourteen years, and eleven of them as gamekeeper) respecting the birds of Skye, he described a spotted eagle-though he had never heard of a species being so called-having been killed by one of the shepherds of the late Mr Macleod, of Orbost, about the year 1840. Soon afterwards, he himself saw another, and subsequently, within a short time, either a second bird or the same individual again. The size he does not accurately remember, though he recollects that it was liker to the Golden than the Sea Eagle; the spotting which he describes would apply correctly to the bird in question. He and others who saw the individual which was shot considered it quite distinct from the Golden and Sea Eagles, and the Osprey, all of which are found there."

Although this species has never come under my own observation, nor been seen or heard of by any of my correspondents in that part of the country, it is not unlikely that specimens may yet occur, seeing that it has been known to breed and been killed in several instances in Ireland, whence but a short flight would take it to some of the southern and middle districts of the Scottish Hebrides.

THE WHITE-TAILED EAGLE.

HALIAËTUS ALBICILLA.

Erne. Iolair Bhuidhe. Iolair Riamhach.
Iolair Shuil na Grèin.

Being a much commoner bird in Scotland than the preceding species, the Sea Eagle has never been at any time in the same danger of extinction. Even in 1867 and 1868 there were numerous eyries in places which have been occupied from time immemorial. Between Loch Brittle and Copnahow Head, in Skye, for example, nine or ten eyries might have been seen, while in several of the smaller groups of isles in the Minch and Gulf of the Hebrides at least a dozen more could be cited. The Isle of Skye, indeed, may be said to be the head quarters of this conspicuous eagle in the west of Scotland the entire coast line of that magnificent country offering many attractions to a bird of its habits. Nearly all the bold headlands of Skye are frequented by at least one pair of Sea Eagles, and it is at no time a difficult matter to get a sight of them. On one property alone there were recently six breeding places; and I have been informed by Dr Dewar, that quite recently as many as six old birds of this species assembled together, and were observed soaring in a group above the house of Captain M'Donald, near Bracadale. Two of these birds-probably males--set upon each other, and fought viciously for a considerable time, while the other four soared leisurely round the combatants, uttering their well-known yelping cry, but making no near approach. The battle, during which a quantity of feathers were scattered in the air, continued until the birds reached the ground, when it was found that one of them was so much injured as to be unable to rise; it was therefore knocked on the head by a shepherd who had stood for some time an interested spectator of the novel fight.

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*

* It is impossible, however, to conceal the fact that if the present destruction of eagles continues we shall soon have to reckon this species among the extinct families of our "feathered nobility." During the last nine years," says my friend Dr Dewar, "a keeper in Skye has shot fifty-seven cagles on a single estate;" and in a letter addressed to myself in November, 1866, by a keeper resident in the west of Ross-shire, the confession is made that during an experience of twelve years he had shot no less than fifty-two eagles, besides taking numbers of both eggs and young. Captain Cameron of Glenbrittle also informs me that he has now seen as many as sixty-two Sea Eagles killed in Skye. No species of eagle could long survive such persecution.