10 ERNE. 



flies along the side of the cliff, at an elevation of a few hun- 

 dred feet, but its powers of sight, or of smell, enable it to 

 discover a dead quarry from, a vastly greater height, and from 

 thence it will stoop like a thunderbolt upon it. True it is, 

 that its sense of smell does not enable it to detect the presence 

 of a man concealed from its sight at the distance of only a 

 few yards, but this can be no argument whatever against its 

 having a keen scent for that which forms naturally a large 

 proportion of its food, and especially when it is so strongly 

 calculated to act powerfully on the organs of scent. 



The Erne is never a gregarious bird; its habits perhaps 

 forbid the exercise of the sociable qualities. Five is the largest 

 number that have been seen in company, even when assembled 

 to prey on a common carrion, and at other times, if as many 

 as three are observed together, it is probably just before the 

 breeding season, or at, and subsequent to that time: it is not 

 until some weeks after the young birds have forsaken the 

 nest, that both the parents leave it altogether. 



An Erne has been known to be attacked by a hawk, supposed 

 to be, probably a Goshawk, and struck down into the sea, both 

 birds falling together. One has been seen in the island of 

 Hoy, sailing off with a pig in its talons, which on enquiry 

 at the farm from whence it had been stolen, was found by 

 the clergyman of the place, who witnessed the fact, to have 

 been four weeks old. Another which had a hen in its talons, 

 dropped it to make a swoop at a litter of pigs, but the sow, 

 with maternal courage, repelled the aggressor, who consequently 

 loist his previous prey, which escaped safely, decidedly a narrow 

 escape, into the farm-house. Another is recorded to have 

 entered a turf pig-stye, in which a pig had died, and being 

 unable to escape through the hole at the top, by which it 

 had descended, in the way of the hungry mouse in the fable, 

 was caught in this novel and unintentional kind of trap, and 

 slain in due course. Others are decoyed in Sutherlandshire, 

 and doubtless in the same manner elsewhere, into a square kind 

 of stone box with an opening at one end, in which has been 

 fixed a noose: the Eagle, after eating of the bait placed within 

 it, walks lazily out of the opening, and is caught by the 

 loop. 



On one occasion, a large salmon was found dead on the 

 shore of Moffat water, and an immense Erne lifeless also beside 

 it, having met its fate by being hooked by its own claws to 

 a fish too large and powerful for it to carry off an unwilling 



