Field and Covert Poachers. 233 



and afford a pleasant sight as they " harry" the 

 game, driving it from one to the other, and 

 hawking in the most systematic fashion. They 

 thoroughly work the ground previously marked 

 out, generally with success. In hawking the 

 quiet mountain tarns their method is regulated 

 according to circumstance. In such case they 

 not unfrequently sit and watch, capturing their 

 prey by suddenly pouncing upon it. 



At one time the golden and white-tailed eagles 

 bred not uncommonly in the mountainous environ- 

 ment of the English Lake District. Most majestic 

 of the winged poachers, they held sway over a 

 wide area, and suffered no intrusion. The eyries 

 were perched high upon the almost inaccessible 

 fastnesses of the mountains. It is asserted by the 

 shepherds of the district that the eagles during 

 the breeding season destroyed a lamb per day, to 

 say nothing of the carnage made on hares, par- 

 tridge, pheasants, grouse, and the water-fowl that 

 inhabit the lakes. The farmers and dalesmen 

 were always careful to plunder the eyries, but 

 not without considerable risk to life and limb. 

 A man was lowered from the summit of the 

 precipitous rocks by a rope of fifty fathoms, and 

 was compelled to defend himself from attack 

 during his descent. The poet Gray in his 

 Journal graphically describes how the eyries 

 were annually plundered, upon one of which 

 occasions he was present. Wordsworth says that 



