268 THE EAGLE IN ENGLAND 



district quite apart from the line of migration of the 

 coasting eagles, and one in which the cliffs and coast of 

 the Bristol Channel, and the open country on the 

 Quantock and Brendon Hills and Exmoor, offer a 

 home as suited to the sea-eagle as the coasts of Jura. 

 " We first saw the eagle," writes a correspondent, " on 

 Christmas Day, circling above the carcass of a sheep on 

 the side of the hill. For several days we observed the 

 bird wheeling over the moor, mainly on the high hills ; 

 but once or twice it was seen flying over the low lands 

 near the villages. It had evidently been feeding upon 

 the sheep, which was freshly killed, but probably not 

 by the eagle ; it was too early for lambs upon the 

 hills, so it probably fed upon carrion and rabbits. It 

 remained for about a month after we saw it, but 

 towards the end of January it was wounded by some 

 gunner, and afterwards picked up dead by a labourer." 

 If this eagle had escaped, it might perhaps have found 

 a mate and occupied the old eyrie in Lundy Island, 

 and the eagle and the red-deer might have once more 

 become neighbours on the coasts of Devon and 

 Somerset. Since the death of the bird mentioned, 

 another is said by a good observer to have haunted the 

 Quant ocks, near St. Audreys ; if so, it has so far 

 escaped the fate of its predecessor. Culver Cliffs, in 

 the Isle of Wight, are said to have been an old eyrie of 

 the erne, or sea-eagle ; and the Arnescliff, a mass of 

 stone jutting from one of the hills in Wharfedale, in 

 Yorkshire, still recalls its former presence south of the 

 border. But as most of those which might settle again 



