52 GAME PRESERVEKS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



Had we a deer-forest, and golden eagles 

 bred in it, we would protect them to keep down 

 the hares. The hinds conceal their fawns when 

 quite young so well that they would seldom 

 find them, and after they are strong enough to 

 follow their mothers we should think they 

 would be safe. 



But they will take lambs. A very intelli- 

 gent shepherd told us that when he was em- 

 ployed in the Island of Eum in one season he 

 lost more than seventy lambs by eagles. His 

 employer then bought him a gun, and in the 

 next eleven years he killed forty golden eagles 

 by exposing dead sheep and building a hiding- 

 place near them. Mr. E. Gray thinks they 

 would be more likely to take a sickly lamb 

 than a healthy one ; that the mother would 

 be able to defend a healthy one. We have but 

 little faith in these theories. When an eagle 

 has swooped down upon a lamb it is its weight, 

 and not its state of health, that will settle the 

 question whether he carries it off or not. He 



