148 BIRDS. 



is yet a man alive who was thus carried away by an Eagle 

 (while a child) to her nest, but was so speedily, by the blessing 

 of God, prevented, that no harm was done to him. We have 

 a law that if any kill one of the Eagles, or Earns, he is to have 

 a hen out of every house in the parish in which it is killed." 



In the old Statistical Account of Scotland (1793), vol. vii. 

 p. 393, it is stated that the Commissioners of Supply give a 

 crown for every Eagle that is destroyed in Orkney. 



Low, in his very interesting Tour, mentions Hoy (where 

 he saw several pairs of the Erne, or Ringtailed Eagle), and Mull 

 Head, in the parish of Deerness, on the east of the Mainland, 

 as breeding-places of the Erne, as also one place on the island 

 of Switha. It was after the inspection of the south and east 

 of this island that Low started off from Kirkwall on his voyage to 

 Shetland, and he seems never to have finished his tour through 

 the rest of the Orkneys, or we should have had many more exact 

 sites given us. Robert Dunn only gives Hoy as a breeding- place. 

 Messrs. Baikie and Heddle, however, give three sites in Hoy, 

 one in Eday, one at Costa Head on the Mainland, and one in 

 S. Eonaldsay, as being known to them " about fifteen years 

 ago." They add : "At present they build at the Berry and at 

 Brseburgh, in Hoy." Even in 1848 the practice of offering 

 large sums for eagles' eggs had done much injury by the 

 destruction of many nests, and, say Messrs. Baikie and Heddle, 

 " but that the present proprietor protects the birds very care- 

 fully, the species would soon be extinct in Orkney." Crichton 

 mentions that a pair of birds " which have been known 

 to settle here year after year have only been very casually 

 noticed in the course of the present season (1860), and have 

 not as yet taken up their permanent abode." l J. Dunn, 

 writing R. Gray, says, " Only one pair of Sea-Eagles have 

 nested in Hoy for several years back ; they are supposed to be 

 very old birds, and unproductive. In 1865 their nest was got 

 at, but was found to be empty, and, in the following year, their 

 nest in another part of the cliffs was also reached, but found to 

 contain one egg, and that an addled one." During his stay in 

 Westness, in the island of Rousay, Buckley was informed that 

 1 A Naturalist's fiamble in the Orcades, p. 63. 



