We had a great deal of talk about the eagles, especially of the difficulties attendant on their study and pursuit, and of their greatly decreasing numbers.

At this very time Hodek, who had also assisted us in procuring skins of the " Stein " Eagle, had just received his first and very favourable report from the districts of the Lower Danube.

So, again, there arose the exciting question of whether I could or could not manage to visit those localities down the river where the eagles and the great vultures nest, and where so many splendid sporting adven- tures might be expected.

The answer was not difficult; for I had only to look at Brehm, with his broad shoulders and face tanned by exposure a man who shunned neither harassing mental desk-work nor the troubles and fatigues of natural-history studies and explorations in the most widely separated parts of the world.

Such a favourable opportunity of making an expedition of this sort, with such a companion, was quite enough to decide me ; while there was, moreover, another ornithologist staying in Vienna Eugen von Homeyer, universally known among scientific men as the President of the Ornithological Society of Berlin.