THE EAGLE IN ENGLAND 269 



in the English cliffs are young birds driven by their 

 parents from the eyries in the north, we must look to 

 Scotland as the source of supply ; and there it is to be 

 feared that the sea-eagles are dwindling in numbers, 

 mainly owing to the incessant war waged upon them 

 by shepherds and " oologists." It may be doubted 

 whether the bribes offered by the latter are not more 

 stimulating than even the loss of their lambs in spring- 

 time to the egg-robbing ardour of the shepherds. Still, 

 the sea-eagles are by general consent ill neighbours to 

 the young lambs which are born on the hills, and lie 

 out scattered on the moors. On the poor and barren 

 Highland coast there is little farm stock to be injured, 

 except the lambs ; but where they are to be found, 

 little pigs are said to offer great temptations to the 

 sea-eagles, and one was caught in the Hebrides in a 

 stye into which it had descended, but which was too 

 narrow to allow it to spread its wings and escape. 

 What a scene such a foray among the pigs would cause 

 in a well-regulated English farmyard ! The statement 

 of a shepherd that in one season more than thirty 

 lambs were killed by eagles on a single sheep-farm has 

 been doubted, on the ground that it would be impos- 

 sible to judge the actual loss, or the cause, on the wide 

 area of a Highland " farm." But perhaps the critics 

 know more of the eagle's habits than of those of the 

 sheep, or of the minute and careful knowledge possessed 

 by the shepherds as to the numbers of the flocks, and 

 the particular spots in which the ewes drop their lambs 

 on the hills. 



