SEPT. SEA-EAGLE SEA-TROUT. 289 



where it can feed on its foul prey, undisturbed and 

 unseen by human eye for months together. Like 

 the golden eagle, this bird sometimes so gorges it- 

 self with food as to become helpless, and if then 

 met with, may be knocked down by a stick, or 

 captured alive before it can rise from the ground 

 a sad and ignoble fate for the king of birds ! 

 After all, the eagle is but a sorry representative 

 of royalty and kingly grandeur ; for although his 

 flight is noble and magnificent, and his strength 

 and power astonishing, there is a cruelty and 

 treachery about the disposition of the bird which 

 render it unfit to be educated and trained like the 

 peregrine and other falcons ; nor does it ever be- 

 come attached to its keeper. 



On the 2 8th of September the last house-swallow 

 took his departure from this neighbourhood, al- 

 though the season was so fine that there were 

 several nests of young greenfinches about the 

 garden even so late as the 30th of the month, 

 and a wood-pigeon was sitting on its eggs in an 

 ash-tree close to the house. 



During the latter weeks of the fishing season 

 (which legally ends on the 15th of September in 

 all the northern rivers), the lower pools of the 

 Findhorn are full of an excellent small sea-trout, 

 locally called the finnock. My opinion is that the 



VOL. I. u 



