WHITE-TAILED EAGLE. 13 



for whom he shows the greatest affection.' This personage indeed 

 can manage him even when in most ungovernable tempers. He 

 has a particular aversion to small boys, and will fly at one going 

 near him. The only animal he is afraid of is a pig, and to hear a 

 pig grunt is enough to make him fly off, even if it should not be 

 in sight. A well-dressed friend ventured one day to touch him 

 with the point of his fashionable light umbrella, which so offended 

 ' RonevalV majesty that he flew at the offending instrument and 

 literally smashed it, breaking the stick and tearing the silk to 

 tatters the owner gladly escaping in unscathed broadcloth himself 

 at the expense of leaving his pet parapluie a spolia opima in the 

 claws of Jove's irate bird. Usually, however, he is affable enough, 

 and does no more mischief than occasionally killing a hen or two 

 if his own dinner is not served up punctually enough, and this is 

 really great forbearance, considering that he actually lives at large 

 in a poultry yard. This proves how very domestic this monarch 

 of the cliffs may become; for although a short-winged flight 

 would carry him to the illimitable freedom of the neighbouring 

 sea cliffs and mountain tops, he has never been known to 'stop 

 out of nights' more than once or twice during a residence of 

 several years." 



In the eastern counties of Scotland this eagle is usually met 

 with in autumn, and almost all the specimens procured from 

 Berwick to Orkney, which I have seen or heard of, were immature 

 birds. At St Abb's Head, in Berwickshire, a solitary eagle is 

 occasionally seen about that season frequenting the precipitous 

 cliffs, which are occupied in summer by large numbers of gulls, 

 razor-bills, and guillemots The stay of these stragglers, some- 

 times extending over a period of two or three weeks, appears to 

 be regulated by the supply of food, which consists entirely of 

 dead animals procured in the immediate neighbourhood. Fish of 

 various kinds are often thrown up by storms, and at once attract 

 the glaucous and great black-backed gulls, which are constantly 

 prowling along the shores. During the eagle's stay, however, 

 they are compelled to resign all the best fish to his exclusive use, 

 and content themselves with a half-putrid wolf fish (Anarrhichas 

 lupus), or sea devil (Lophius piscatorius), numbers of which are 

 thrown overboard by the fishermen as useless, and in time are 

 stranded on the beach. About twenty miles north of this locality 

 one or two Cinereous Eagles have been obtained in a much quieter, 



