Cassell's book of birds; vol. 2Brehm, Alfred Edmund
Science
Cassell's book of birds; vol. 2
Brehm, Alfred Edmund
Birds
The eyrie of the Sea Eagle is a large structure, from five to seven
feet in diameter, and from one and a half to two feet high, formed
externally of branches as thick as a man's arm, and lined with twigs; the
interior is rendered warm and soft with down plucked from the mother's
breast. The brood consists of from two to four eggs, about three inches
long; the shell is thick, rough, and coarsely grained, sometimes white
without any markings, and occasionally spotted with red or brown. What
period of time elapses before the nestlings escape from the egg is not
yet known, but it has been ascertained that both parents assist in the
work of incubation. The young do not leave the nest until from ten to
thirteen weeks after their birth, and even then return to it at night;
it is only as autumn approaches that they finally withdraw from parental
care. The Sea Eagle is extremely shy, and therefore captured with great
difficulty. In Norway small stone huts are erected for this purpose,
outside which a piece of flesh, fastened to a string, is laid upon the
ground; the other end of the string is held by a man within the hut, who
no sooner perceives that his bait is taken, than he draws up the piece
of meat, which the bird will not relinquish, and by this means usually
succeeds in bringing the huge creature to close quarters, and killing it
or making it prisoner. When caged the Sea Eagle soon becomes tame, and
learns to distinguish its friends amid a crowd of strangers; indeed, so
thoroughly does it accustom itself to its new life, that one with which
we were familiar, having escaped from confinement, used to return every
day to visit its companions, and was at last re-captured while perched
upon their cage. These Eagles have been killed in various counties in
England, and are not uncommon in the rocky parts of the western and
northern counties of Ireland; they are said to be common in Scotland,
and breed in the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland. Dr. Heysham, in his
catalogue of Cumberland animals, says that they breed occasionally in the
neighbourhood of Keswick and Ullswater.
THE AFRICAN SCREAMING SEA EAGLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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