GOLDEN EAGLE. 15 
forests on the plains. It is met with in India, and various 
parts of Asia, as well as in every part of the continent of 
Europe, and also in North America, in greater or less numbers. 
It was formerly far from uncommon in England, and in still 
‘more ancient times, in all probability, was much more frequent. 
In Yorkshire, one has been recorded by Arthur Strickland, 
Esq. as having occurred in the East Riding, and a second was 
killed by Admiral Mitford’s gamekeeper. Another was shot in 
1847, at Littlecott, the seat of Mr. Popham, near Hungerford, 
in Berkshire: it had glutted itself on a dead deer, and was 
unable to fly away on the approach of the keeper, who fired 
six times before he killed it. Another was captured in Cheshire, 
in the year 1845, at Somerford Park, the seat of Sir Charles 
Peter Shakerley, Bart., and another, in the same county, a 
few years previously, near Eaton Hall, the seat of the Marquis 
of Westminster. 
It has been known to breed regularly, even up to a com- 
paratively recent date, in Cumberland and Westmorland, and 
also formerly in Derbyshire; in which county one was captured 
alive, near Clossop, in some severe weather, in the year 1720; 
another, about the year 1770, was shot at Hardwick Park, a 
seat of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, one of the foun- 
dations of the celebrated ‘Bess of Hardwick,’ another about 
the year 1820, near Cromford, and another was seen at 
Matlock in 1843, but, though frequently shot at, it was not 
procured. They are still not very unfrequently to be seen in 
the highlands of Perthshire and Sutherlandshire, chiefly in the 
north and north-west parts, and on the mountains of other 
counties in Scotland, such as Ben Lomond, and Ben Nevis, 
and still more frequently on the mountains of Ireland. Thirteen 
or fourteen were killed between the years 1828 and 1882, in 
the county of Donegal, and some have been in the habit of 
breeding in the Island of Achil, as well as near Killarney, 
and at Rosheen, near Dunfanaghy: others have been met with 
near Belfast, Tralee, Monasterevan, the mountain of Croagh 
Patrick, and in many other parts of that island, as also on 
the Scottish border, and in the highlands of Wales, as well 
as, though but rarely, in Shetland. 
The flight of the Golden Eagle, when not pursuing its prey, 
is ‘at first slow and heavy like that of the Heron, and when 
sailing in the air, much resembles that of the Common Buzzard. 
It often ascends to a vast heigns when looking out for food, 
and on perceiving its quarry, descends up:~ it like a flash of 
