WHITE-TAILED SEA-EAGLE. 231 



Shetland, where however it is rare. Perhaps the whole of the 

 islands could not produce more than a dozen of pairs. It is 

 generally, unless at the breeding season, found in single indi- 

 A-iduals. It feeds chiefly on rabbits and sea birds, especially 

 the young of the larger gulls ; but it does not neglect carrion, 

 if it is to be had, in lonely places, and before it becomes very 

 putrescent. It is not very destructive to sheep. In spring, it 

 often sweeps along the cottages very early in the morning, to 

 the fjital experience of the poultry. During summer and har- 

 vest, large flocks of geese pasture among the most retired hills, 

 without any protection, and in the vicinity of its favourite 

 haunts, yet its depredations on them are rare. This abstemious- 

 ness must not, however, be taken for amiable self-denial, but 

 for a most uneagle-like pusillanimity. The wing of the gan- 

 der, which not unfrequently is uplifted in defence of his young, 

 has a moral if not a physical power, which the robber Erne 

 seems to quail under. 



" Occasionally, during warm weather, skate and holibut bask 

 on the surface of the water, and the Eagle pounces on them ; 

 but several instances have occurred of this aquatic hunt being 

 fatal to him. Indeed, I am inclined to think that this habit 

 is one chief way in which his numbers are kept down. If the 

 fish is not so large as to be able immediately to drag him under 

 water, he elevates his wings, and in this way, if the wind 

 happens to be blowing on the land, he often manages to reach 

 it in safety. An instance of this once occurred to my grand- 

 father, who, concealing himself until the bird had thus sailed 

 ashore, seized both him and his victim, a small holibut. 



" It is not to be supposed, whatever the natives may say, that 

 the Eagle in this case, regards his wings as sails. He keeps 

 them as long as he can in the air, because this is their natural 

 element, and because he, finding he has ' caught a Tartar,' 

 wishes to disengage himself. And, whatever be the intention 

 of spreading his canvass to the breeze, it as often destroys as 

 saves him by carrying him from as to the land. After reach- 

 ing the shore, the first thing he docs is to extricate his claws 

 with his beak, and by repeatedly stroking his feathers to dry 



