“Destroy them,” was the reply, “destroy them by every possible means, for we can count on no assistance from other than human helpers. Eagles are the tyrants of the air, and no other bird dares attack them. The destruction of their nests is the surest way to put an end to the ravages they from time to time commit among our flocks. But it is an enterprise not without danger to make one’s way to the eagle’s aery and wring the necks of the young birds. The shepherds of the Pyrenees go about this work in couples, one armed with a double-barreled rifle and the other with a long pike. At daybreak, when the eagle is already away hunting, the two nest-destroyers climb to the top of the steep declivity where the aery is situated. The first man, the one armed with the rifle, posts himself on the rocky summit to fire at the eagle if it returns, while the second, his pike fastened to his belt, clambers down from rock to rock to the aery and removes the eaglets, which are still too young to offer serious resistance. But at their first cry of distress the mother hastens to the rescue and hurls herself furiously at her enemy, who receives her with blows of his pike until his comrade brings her down with a well-aimed shot. The male, until then soaring among the clouds, now descends like a thunderbolt and is on the hunter’s head before the man has time to use his pike. Fortunately a second bullet from the rifle-man stationed above breaks the bird’s wing.” “What if he had missed the bird?” asked Jules. “Then it would have been all over with his companion. His face torn by the eagle’s beak and his eyes pecked out, he would have fallen to the foot of the precipice, a mangled corpse. No, it is hardly a holiday diversion to go bird-nesting among the haunts of the eagle.” “I’m sure I shouldn’t care to undertake it,” was Jules’s comment. “Next to the eagle the goshawk is the largest of our diurnal birds of prey. It is a magnificent creature about the size of a well-grown rooster, brown above and white underneath, with numerous little dark stripes running around the body. The eye is adorned with a white eyebrow, the beak is blue-black, and the feet are yellow.