1 8 BIRDS OF PREY. 



The ferocious and savage nature of the Eagle, in an unre- 

 claimed state, is sometimes displayed in a remarkable manner. 

 A peasant attempted to rob an eyry of this bird situated at the 

 Lake of Killarney : for this purpose he stripped and swam over 

 to the spot in the absence of the old birds ; but on his return, 

 while yet up to the chin in water, the parents arrived, and 

 missing their young, instantly fell on the unfortunate plunderer 

 and killed him on the spot. 



There are several well-authenticated instances of their carry- 

 ing off children to their nests. In 1737, in the parish of 

 Norderhougs, in Norway, a boy over two years old, on his way 

 from the cottage to his parents, at work in the fields at no great 

 distance, fell into the pounce of an Eagle, who flew off with 

 the child in their sight, and was seen no more. Anderson, in 

 his history of Iceland, says that in that island children of four 

 or five years of age have occasionally been borne away by 

 Eagles ; and Ray relates that in one of the Orkneys a child of 

 a year old was seized in the talons of this ferocious bird and 

 carried about four miles to its nest, but the mother, knowing 

 the place of the eyry, followed the bird, and recovered her child 

 yet unhurt. 



The Common, or Ring-tailed Eagle, is now found to be the 

 young of the Golden Eagle. These progressive changes have 

 been observed by Temminck on two living subjects which he 

 kept for several years. 



The Golden Eagle is generally considered to be a rare bird in 

 New England and Canada, and, indeed, throughout the settled dis- 

 tricts everywhere ; though examples have been taken the continent 

 over, from Greenland to Mexico, and west to the Pacific. 



