THE EXTERMINATION OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE_
[To VIZ EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'l
Sin,—The other day it was announced in several papers that a fine male "specimen" of the golden eagle was taken at a high altitude on Cam n Bhren, on the Grinnards estate. The majority of your readers will, I am sure, join with me in wishing that the proud possessor of this noble creature could: have found some more sensible, and less harmful, occupation. Appeals to the skin-hunters are hopeless. If one of these were pointed out a golden eagle, and told that it was the last of its race, he would only be the more eager to secure it. It is said that the Scottish eagle is on the increase, and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, in a letter to me, asserts that "eagles are more numerous at the present time in the Highlands than they were twenty years ago." On the other hand, some good authorities contend that the supply is continually maintained by recruits from Norway ; and this, if true, is a fact which shows that the home bird is not increasing. These may fail. us too, in turn, if the authorities do not interfere in their interests.
Our country is being rapidly deprived of the noblest of it& feathered inhabitants. During the last few years a number of species have become extinct, and other species are fast disappearing. Most of us, unfortunately, have never had the pleasure of seeing many of these birds, and I agree with, Hudson as to the cause,—the direct action of man, the greedy collector mainly, whose methods are as discreditable as his action is injurious. There must be a remedy for this state of things. In pointing out that the Wild Birds Protectiou, Acts of 1880 and 1896 should be made general in terms, beg to suggest that if all birds cannot be protected, the right principle is to enumerate just those species which are, to be outside the pale of protection, not those which are tc. be within it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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