EA GLES ON AN ENGLISH LAKE 271 



a duck is flying over the park it is cut over and de- 

 voured. The sight was most curious, for the teal's 

 head was bent down, while that of the falcon was thrown 

 back ; the falcon's tail was also bent downwards so as 

 to be nearly vertical ; it carried the teal in front of its 

 body, not underneath it. * Bustling the ducks ' is a 

 regular game with the peregrines, which feed early in 

 the morning, and amuse themselves with tormenting 

 the ducks in the afternoon. One will chase a flock of 

 mallards up the lake, then another dashes out to meet 

 them, and enjoys the sport of seeing the whole flock 

 drop from air to water. This is a very exceptional 

 sanctuary, but there are very many lakes where the 

 same degree of protection might be rewarded by a 

 similar confidence on the part of the birds ; and though 

 the eagles and falcons frighten the ducks, they do not 

 drive them permanently from the waters. In Norfolk 

 the white-tailed eagles were formerly common visitors 

 to the Broad district, where they were known as * fen 

 eagles ' ; probably they were young birds passing south ; 

 but if these birds were less persecuted by the Scotch 

 shepherds, their fidelity to this English lake shows that 

 they might reappear on other waters of the East and 

 South. Unfortunately, while the golden eagles are in- 

 creasing in the deer forests, the sea eagles, which keep 

 to the coast, and nest mainly near the sheep-farms, are 

 persecuted and killed off as much as possible by the 





