The Bateleur Eagle is about two feet in length, and has an enormous crest of plumes. The colour is black, with a large maroon-coloured patch on the shoulders and on the back, the tail being also of this colour. Sometimes individuals with pale, cream-coloured backs are found; but at present it is not known whether these are a different species, or whether they constitute only a pale variety of the ordinary Bateleur.
THE WHITE-TAILED EAGLE (Haliaëtus albicilla[195]).
Sea Eagles are absent from South America, but probably from no other country of the globe. Both Europe and North America are inhabited by large and powerful species; and throughout Africa and Madagascar the handsomely-marked species H. vocifer occurs. One of the most widespread is the White-bellied Sea Eagle; it is found round the coasts of Australia and all the Molucca Islands, ranging as far as India and Ceylon, and as high as Cochin China.
The White-tailed Eagle, which, from its being an inhabitant of the British Islands, is the species most familiarly known of all the Sea Eagles, is still met with in some of the northern parts of Scotland, and in the Hebrides; but as it is a bird which creates a good deal of havoc among lambs at certain periods of the year, the war of extermination which has been waged against it has now contributed considerably to the increasing rarity of the species on these coasts. The breeding of this Sea Eagle has been well described by Mr. Woolley.[196] He says:—“On the coasts, the Sea Eagle chooses a roomy and generally sheltered ledge of rock. The egg which Mr. Hewitson figures (Eggs, Br. B., ed. 3, pl. iv., fig. 2) is one of two which I took on the 23rd April, 1849, on one of the most northern points of our island. The nest was very slightly made of a little grass and fresh heather loosely put together, without any sticks; but two or three ‘kek’ stalks were strewn about outside. There was a good thickness of guano-like soil upon the rock, which made much nest unnecessary. Two or three Guillemot’s beaks, the only unmanageable part of that bird, were not far off. The eggs were laid two days before when I went to reconnoitre; and I never shall forget the forbearance which a friend who was with me showed, at my request, as he lay, gun in hand, with the hen Eagle in full view upon her nest not forty yards below him. Her head was towards the cliff, and concealed from our sight; whilst her broad back and white tail, as she stood bending over her nest on the grassy ledge, with the beautiful sandstone rock and sea beyond, completed a picture rarely to be forgotten. But our ears, and the air we breathe, give a finish to Nature’s pictures which no art can imitate; and here were the effects of the sea, and the heather, and the rocks, the fresh warmth of the northern sun, and the excitement of exercise, while the musical yelping of the male Eagle came from some stand out of sight. Add to all this the innate feeling of delight connected with the pursuit of wild animals, which no philosopher has yet been able to explain further than as a special gift of our Great Maker, and then say whether it is not almost blasphemy to call such a scene a ‘picture!’ Upon this occasion, I made some remark to my friend, when the hen Eagle showed her clear eye and big, yellow beak, her head full of the expression of wild nature and freedom. She gave us a steady glance, then sprang from the rock, and with ‘slow winnowing wing’—the flight-feathers turning upwards at every stroke—was soon out at sea. Joined by her mate, she began to sail with him in circles farther and farther away, till quite out of sight, yelping as long as we could hear them, Gulls mobbing them all the time. To enjoy the beauties of a wild coast to perfection, let me recommend any man to seat himself in an Eagle’s nest. The year before this I took the young ones out of the same eyry late in July. It was my first attempt at an Eagle’s stronghold, and I shall never forget the interest of the whole affair; a thunderstorm coming on just before, making it necessary to cut drains in the peat with our knives, to divert the torrents of water; our councils about the best mode of attaching the ropes; the impertinence of a young lad who, stationed to watch for my signals, was rendered quite useless by his keen sense of the ridiculous on seeing me, in my inexperience, twisting round and round at the end of the rope; the extraordinary grandeur everything assumed, from the nest itself; the luxurious feeling of exultation; the interest of every plant about it—I know them all now; the heaps of young Herring-Gulls’ remains, and the large fish-bone; but, above all, the Eaglets fully able to fly, and yet crouching side by side, with their necks stretched out and chins on the ground, like young Fawns, their frightened eyes showing that they had no intention of showing fight.
“Very gently, as a man ‘tickles’ trout, I passed my hand under them, and tied their legs together, and then tried to confine their wings. They actually allowed me to fasten a handkerchief round them, which, however, was soon shaken off when they began to be pulled up. When the men had raised me, the string attached to my waist lifted one Eaglet, and presently the second came to the length of his tether. Great was the flapping of wings, and clutching at rocks and grass. I had many fears that the string or the birds’ legs must give way; but, after much hard pulling, I got them safely to the top, and they are now (1853) alive at Matlock amongst rocks, where I hope they may breed; but, though five years old this season, they have not yet quite completed the adult plumage. Their dutiful parents never came near them in their difficulties; but I am happy to say that in 1850 (the year after I took their eggs), they carried off their young, through the interest I was able to exert in their favour. They had shifted their position; and they changed again in 1851 to a rock with an aspect quite different, and more than a mile away. In 1847, to please the shepherds, the young were shot in the nest, which was built in the spot where I visited it the two following years. There was no sea-weed about this nest either time that I saw it; but a friend writes me word, that two which he examined last year on the sea-cliffs of this island, and which he carefully described to me, were principally made of that material, as Mr. Hewitson also had found them in the Shetland Islands. On one of these two occasions, the old Eagle made a dash near my informant, with a ‘fearful scream,’ and such was the tremendous character of the rocks, that his ‘hair gets strong’ when he thinks of them. These two nests, both occupied, were not more than a mile and a half apart.”
WHITE-TAILED EAGLE.
THE SWALLOW-TAILED KITE (Elanoides furcatus).
The forked tail which is characteristic of the Kites reaches in the present species its greatest development, so that the name of Swallow-tailed Kite is by no means inappropriate. On five occasions the bird has been captured in England, and it is doubtless during its migration that the bird is driven to Britain by some adverse wind. Its range is extensive, as it is numerous during the summer in some of the southern States of North America, and it migrates to South America, whence it frequently appears in collections from Brazil and Columbia. Mr. Audubon gives the following account of the Swallow-tailed Kite:—“The flight of this elegant species of Hawk is singularly beautiful and protracted. It moves through the air with such ease and grace, that it is impossible for any individual, who takes the least pleasure in observing the manners of birds, not to be delighted by the sight of it whilst on the wing. Gliding along in easy flappings, it rises in wide circles to an immense height, inclining in various ways its deeply-forked tail, to assist the direction of its course; dives with the rapidity of lightning, and, suddenly checking itself, re-ascends, soars away, and is soon out of sight. At other times, a flock of these birds, amounting to fifteen or twenty individuals, is seen hovering around the trees. They dive in rapid succession amongst the branches, glancing along the trunks, and seizing in their course the insects and small lizards of which they are in quest. Their motions are astonishingly rapid, and the deep curves which they describe, their sudden doublings and crossings, and the extreme ease with which they seem to cleave the air, excite the admiration of him who views them while thus employed in searching for food.
“In the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, where these birds are abundant, they arrive in large companies in the beginning of April, and are heard uttering a sharp plaintive note. At this period I generally remarked that they came from the westward, and have counted upwards of a hundred in the space of an hour, passing over me in a direct easterly course. At that season, and in the beginning of September when they all retire from the United States, they are easily approached when they have alighted, being then apparently fatigued, and busily engaged in preparing themselves for continuing their journey, by dressing and oiling their feathers. At all other times, however, it is extremely difficult to get near them, as they are generally on wing through the day, and at night rest on the highest pines and cypresses, bordering the river-bluffs, the lakes, or the swamps of that district of country.