106 SCARCITY OF GAME, 



by the strength of the fish, and the calmness of the day, 

 joined to drenched plumage, rendered him unable to extricate 

 himself. With a stone, the peasant broke the eagle's pinion, 

 and actually secured the spoiler and his victim, for he found 

 the salmon dying in his grasp. 



When shooting on Lord Sligo's mountains, near the 

 Killeries, I heard many particulars of the eagle's habits and 

 histoia^from a grey-haired peasant, who had passed a long 

 life il^l^fcwilds. ^ ne scarcity of hares, which here were 

 once abuml^T he attributed to the rapacity of those birds ; 

 and he affirmed that, when in pursuit of these animals, the 

 eagle evinced a degree of intelligence that appeared extra- 

 ordinary. They coursed the hares, he said, with great 

 judgment and certain success ; one bird was the active 

 follower, while another remained in reserve, at the distance of 

 forty or fifty yards. If the hare, by a sudden turn, freed 

 herself from her most pressing enemy, the second bird 

 Instantly took up the chase, and thus prevented the victim 

 from having a moment's respite. 



He had remarked the eagles, also, while they were engaged 

 in fishing. They chose a small ford upon the rivulet which 

 connects Glencullen with Glandullah, and, posted on either 

 side, waited patiently for the salmon to pass over. Their 

 watch was never fruitless ; and many a salmon, in its transit 

 from the sea to the lake, was transferred from his native 

 element to the wild aerie in the Alpine cliff, that beetles over 

 the romantic waters of Glencullen. 



Nor is it to birds of prey alone that the extreme scarcity of 

 game upon this island may be attributed. Foxes are found 

 here in numbers that appear incredible. The sides of Slieve 

 More, in places formed of masses of disrupted rock, afford 

 numerous and inaccessible burrows to those mischievous 

 animals ; and the sand-banks, stocked with rabbits, offer them 

 an easy and certain means of subsistence. Hence, their 

 annual increase is wonderful ; and the numbers on the island 

 may be estimated from this simple fact, that one of the coast- 

 guard, who happened to have a 'coigple of good terriers, 

 destroyed, in the space of a season eighteen full-grown foxes.* 



* Dr. Johnson, in his Tour to the Hebrides, remarks, " To check 

 the ravages of the foxes in the Isle of Sky, the inhabitants set a price 

 upon their heads, which, as the number diminished, has been gradually 



