106 THE EAGLE. 



did not learn whether these Eagles were in the habit of 

 sparing lambs, kids, &c., in their own immediate neighbour- 

 hood, which it has been said they do in some places. Thus, 

 in the Shiant Islands, a cluster of wild and retired rocks, 

 situated amongst the Hebrides, or western islands of Scot- 

 land, the natives assert that the Eagles, which are, or rather 

 were, very numerous there, particularly in the breeding 

 season, scrupulously abstained from providing their young 

 ones with animals belonging to the island in which they 

 had taken up their abode, invariably transporting them 

 from neighbouring islands, often some miles distant. Their 

 mode of catching the mountain deer was by pouncing down 

 and fixing their talons between the poor animal's horns, 

 napping at the same time with their powerful wings, which 

 so terrified the deer, that they lost all command over them- 

 selves, and setting off at full speed, usually tumbled down 

 some rock, where they were either killed, or so disabled as 

 to become any easy prey to the Eagles. 



Probably this instinctive mode of catching running animals 

 is common to all large birds of prey, and may have led to 

 the introduction of it in some parts of India, where the 

 natives are very fond of hawking, and train their hunting 

 Hawks so well, that one particular Falcon, called the Chirk, 

 is taught to strike an antelope, a beautiful species of small 

 deer, and retard its speed, by fastening on its head, till the 

 greyhounds come up. 



But a still more extraordinary mode, by which the Eagle 

 contrives to kill even oxen, is mentioned as often witnessed in 

 Heligoland, a small and now deserted rocky island in the 

 German Ocean, off the coast of Denmark. Persons resident 

 there state that it first flies away to the sea, and then 

 plunging into the waves, returns to land, where it rolls itself 

 on the shore till its wings are quite covered with sand. It 

 then rises again, and hovers over its victim. When close to 

 it, it shakes its wings, and thus scatters the gravel and sand 

 into the eyes of the ox, while it adds to the fright of the 

 animal by blows with its powerful wings. The blinded animal 

 becomes stupified, and runs about quite raving, and, at length, 



