BIEDS AND THE AETS 117 



BIRDS AT PLAY 



The instances of birds at play which you give in your 

 review of " The Eomance of Bird Life " (Spectator, 

 November 7) reminds me of a story told me many years 

 ago by a shepherd in the West of Ireland. The story 

 seems too good and too true to nature to be an invention. 

 This man's cottage stood near the foot of some great 

 mountain cliffs, above which, on the flat top of the hill, 

 was the peat bog where he cut his year's supply of fuel. 

 It was his custom to stack the turf, when ready for 

 removal to the lower ground, quite near the edge of the 

 cliff. The place happened to be conveniently close to the 

 only path by which a descent was practicable. One season 

 the shepherd noticed that the top of his stack was 

 curiously disturbed. He put it in order, but was surprised 

 a few days later to observe that it was again disturbed, 

 and some sods removed. The place is very remote, it 

 was clear that the cause must have been something quite 

 unusual. He determined to watch, and this was what he 

 saw. An eagle of whose haunting the neighbourhood 

 at the time he was aware descended on the stack of peat, 

 lifted a sod with his claws, soared upwards to a great 

 height, and then, dropping the sod, swooped down upon 

 it with prodigious speed, and caught it again before it 

 reached the ground. When, after several such flights the 

 eagle missed his catch, and the sod fell down into the valley, 

 the bird returned to the stack, found another sod, and con- 

 tinued his game. Once, on the edge of a very similar 

 range of cliffs, I had the rare delight of watching a pere- 

 grine teaching her young to fly. A projecting rock on 

 the very brink gave me a point of vantage, and I re- 

 member well the rage and fear of the mother, and her cries 

 of warning when I put my head over the top of the rock, 

 and looked straight into the splendid eyes of the young 

 falcon as it clung to the face of the cliff. If this was not 



