156 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



stretch of water where the wild-fowl come, it will build its 

 eyrie there, and scourge the surrounding country (not sparing 

 the sheepfolds), to supply its young. 



They are not uncommon in the wildest parts of Scotland 

 and Ireland, and though, of course, persecuted everywhere, 

 they succeed by their extraordinary wariness and admirable 

 judgment as to breeding-places in keeping their ground. 

 For the erne has the expert eye of an engineer for an " inac- 

 cessible" spot, and having found one that nothing that moves 

 on feet can reach, it returns to it year after year, and brings out 

 its young in security. All that our poets have written of their 

 eagles of fancy may, for majesty in llight, be fairly applied to 

 this bird. " When the tempest's at its loudest, on the gale the 

 eagle rides," — " playmate of the storm," — " triumphant on the 

 bosom of the storm, glances the iire-clad eagle's wheeling 

 form,"- — "a swift eagle, in the morning glare, breasting the 

 whirlwind with impetuous flight," — all these are quite 

 applicable to the sea-eagle, for folk say that no tempest that 

 ever blew could keep the erne at home. When the sea-birds 

 are driven inland, the ernes remain to wheel about as if 

 enraptured in the storm-distracted sky — and "like spirits 

 hardened by despair, joy in the savage tempest." 



There is nothino- mean about it. A law to itself, and there- 

 fore lawless ; stronger than any other fowl it ever sees, and 

 therefore a tyrant ; a bird of prey, and therefore pitiless. Its 

 evrie is a citadel that cannot be stormed, and the fierce-eyed 



