40 British Birds, 



ground, mottled or marbled nearly or quite all over 

 with a sort of rusty hue. 



The young ones, while yet too young to lea^ve the 

 nest, are amply catered for by their parents. Lists 

 are sometimes given of the spoils, feathered and four- 

 footed, found in what may be styled the Eagle's larder 

 — Black Game, Moor Game, Partridges, Hares, Rabbits, 

 Lambs, young Roes, and so on, to an amount that 

 would seem hardly credible to one not conversant with 

 the Eagle's power of vision and mighty sweep of wing. 

 Indeed there is a story told of a man in Ireland who 

 got a fair provision for his family in a season of 

 scarcity by no other effort than was requisite in 

 plundering an Eagle's nest of the food brought in by 

 the parent birds for their young. He is said also to 

 have prolonged the season of supply by preventing 

 the 3^oung ones from flying, by clipping their wings as 

 the feathers grew. Instances have been known where 

 the prey seized was human. Professor Wilson tells a 

 touching story, in a touching way, of an incident of 

 the kind, in which the infant was seized as it lay and 

 slept where its mother had placed it, while herself 

 busy not far off in the harvest field, and carried ofi' by 

 the strong bird to its eyry. The poor mother, frantic 

 with her loss, blind to everything but the thought and 

 effort for the recovery of her babe, safely scaled the 

 precipice, high up on which the nest was placed — 

 though no man, however skilful and expert as a crags- 

 man, had ever dared attempt the ascent — found her 

 babe alive and unhurt, and smiling in her face, de- 

 scended again — a more perilous feat still — in safety ; 

 and once more on level ground at the foot, swooned 



