126 BIRDS OF LANCASHIEE. 



GENUS HALIAETUS. 



WHITE -TAILED EAGLE. 



Haliaetus albicilla (Linnfeus). 



An accidental visitor, of rare occurrence. At Leagram 

 Hall is preserved a specimen, in immature plumage, 

 "which was killed when roosting in Hodder Hole Wood 

 by some poachers in November, 1840, and Mr. John 

 Weld tells me that Eagles, probably of this species, used 

 occasionally to be seen at intervals of a few years in 

 that neighbourhood, or on the adjoining high moors, in 

 hard winters after very stormy weather. A Sea-Eagle 

 was taken alive in the year 1838 near Broughton-in- 

 Furness [The Eev. H. A. Macpherson states that this 

 bird was really captured on the top of Blackcombe, 

 Cumberland. — Ed.], and was kept in confinement at 

 Broadgate, the residence of the Lewthwaite family, until 

 1846 or 1847, when it died through an injury to its 

 wing, inflicted during recapture after an attempt to 

 escape from the garden where it was confined. The 

 feet were preserved, and Mr. William Lewthwaite has 

 been kind enough to forward them to me for the purposes 

 of identification. Mr. C. S. Gregson says (Nat. Scraj) 

 Book, 1864, pt. 16) that he has examined an immature 

 Sea-Eagle, shot on Blundell sands some time before, 

 and Mr. Hugh P. Hornby writes me that he is convinced 

 it was a bird of this species which he saw at St. 

 Michael's-on-Wyre in the last week of October, 1875, 

 and the whiteness of its tail led him to believe it was 

 adult : he says that close to the spot whence it rose was 

 a dead rabbit with eyes and entrails cleaned out. 



