298 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



lowered over a cliff to rob an Eagle's nest in the 

 interests of the lambs under his charge. 



He carried a small sack fastened to his waist to 

 put the eaglets in. His arms, as usual, were free, 

 that he might be able to fend his swaying body from 

 projecting ledges of rock. He captured the brood 

 safely, and was being drawn aloft by his friends 

 in triumph. 



Half-way up, the parent birds returned to the 

 cliff, one bearing a lamb in its talons ; the bird that 

 carried food to, as she thought, her expectant 

 young rested on a slab of stone hard by, but the 

 other, probably the male, came at once to the 

 attack, beating the robber of the eyrie furiously 

 about the head and face with its powerful wings 

 and clutching his arms with the talons as he 

 fought to defend his face. Bruised and bleeding 

 he reached the top, nor could he push away from 

 the sharp rock as he was drawn upwards. He told 

 me his first impulse was to throw the captives loose, 

 and would have done so, but he dared not for one 

 instant lower his hands from before his face, or 

 his eyes would have been torn out by his fierce 

 assailant. 



Foxes were formerly very abundant in Achill, as 

 they now are across the sound in Erris, and might 

 be seen chasing lambs and small sheep by day. A 

 poor woman with her infant of a few weeks old, laid 

 it down on the heather to run after a fox that was 

 prowling round her little stock of fowl. On turn- 

 ing home, to her dismay she saw a large Eagle 

 bearing her child away. The unhappy mother, wild 

 with fear, ran through the village. She could not 



