130 THE EAGLE. 



Shiant Islands, a cluster of wild and retired rocks, 

 situated amongst the Hebrides, or Western Islands of 

 Scotland, the natives assert that the Eagles, which 

 are, or rather were, very numerous there, particularly 

 in the breeding season, scrupulously abstained from 

 providing their young ones with animals belonging to 

 the island in which they had taken up their abode, 

 invariably transporting them from neighbouring 

 islands, often some miles distant. Their mode of 

 catching the mountain deer, was by pouncing down 

 and fixing their talons between the poor animal's 

 horns, flapping at the same time with their powerful 

 wings, which so terrified the deer, that they lost all 

 command over themselves, and setting off at full 

 speed, usually tumbled down some rock, where they 

 were either killed, or so disabled, as to become an 

 easy prey to the Eagles. 



Probably this instinctive mode of catching running 

 animals is common to all large birds of prey, and 

 may have led to the introduction of it in some parts 

 of India, where the natives are very fond of hawking, 

 and train their hunting Hawks so well, that one par- 

 ticular Falcon, called the Chirk, is taught to strike 

 an antelope, a beautiful species of small deer, and 

 retard its speed, by fastening on its head, till the 

 greyhounds come up. 



But a still more extraordinary mode, by which, 

 the Eagle contrives to kill even oxen, is mentioned 

 as often witnessed in Heligoland, a small and now 

 deserted rocky island in the German Ocean, off the 

 coast of Denmark. Persons resident there, state, 

 that it first flies away to the sea, and then plunging 

 into the wares, returns to land, where it rolls itself 



