VISITING ACHIL. 121 



habitation, accompanied by two eaglets, evidently to 

 teach their young to stoop and lift their prey."* The 

 old birds tore up turfs from the mountain side, rose high 

 in the air and dropped them. The eaglets, in turn, 

 stooped, and took them up again. This was frequently 

 repeated, and the course of instruction having lasted 

 half-an-hour, the eagles mounted to their aerie, and, leav- 

 ing their progeny safely in the nest, sailed off upon the 

 rising breeze to provide for the evening meal. We viewed 

 the proceedings of this predatory family through the 

 telescope of the coast-guard, who gave us many curious 

 anecdotes of those daring and destructive birds. 



We took an opposite course to the barren beat we had 

 yesterday pursued. The bogs were intersected by 

 several mountain-streams, whose dry and heathy banks 

 offered excellent feeding and shelter for grouse. Our 

 success, however, was very indifferent to what we had 

 anticipated, from the promising appearance of the ground, 

 and we had spent an hour, hunting with two brace of 

 prime dogs, before we saw a bird. We met numerous 

 indications of a strong pack having recently visited 

 the river, and left no place untried which birds might 

 be expected to frequent. At last, we began to imagine 

 that the eagles had been here before us, when at some 

 distance a young setter dropped on a heathy brow that 

 overhung the rivulet. We were advancing, but the pack, 

 alarmed by the sudden appearance of the dog above 

 them, took wing, and we had to content ourselves with 

 reckoning them, as they got up bird by bird. We 



* " The story of the eagle brought to the ground, after a severe 

 conflict with a cat, which it had seized and taken up into the air 

 with its talons, is very remarkable. Mr. Barber, who was an eye- 

 witness of the fact, made a drawing of it, which he afterwards 

 engraved." — Bewick. 



