White-tailed Eagle. 63 



given.* In addition to these I have another record of the occur- 

 rence of the Eagle in Wiltshire, and that is an extract from the 

 Salisbury Journal, bearing date as long ago as the middle of 

 the last century, kindly sent me by Mr. Waylen. It is to the 

 effect that ' one summer evening an eagle was observed sailing 

 towards the summit of Salisbury Cathedral; he reposed there 

 all night, and early in the morning set sail northwards/ Nor 

 is that the only occasion on which the spire of Salisbury Cathedral 

 has been so honoured. In the year 1828 or 1829 a similar case 

 occurred, of which a highly respected Rector of a Wiltshire 

 parish was an eye-witness, and within the last few weeks has 

 furnished me with the particulars. My informant was, at that 

 time, a young boy at the celebrated school kept by Dr. RadclhTe 

 at Salisbury, and he describes the house and school buildings, 

 which have long since disappeared, as entered from Castle Street ; 

 and his bedroom as over the large and lofty school-room, and its 

 windows as giving a view of the upper part of the spire, uninter- 

 rupted by the neighbouring houses. It was on a summer evening, 

 at about five or six o'clock, that an eagle, said to have come from 

 a northerly direction, took its place on the grand perch it had 

 selected, on the vane above the spire. The night chanced to be 

 that of a full moon, and the sky was cloudless. Just before 

 bedtime my informant came into possession, for the first time in 

 his life, of ' Lord Byron's Tales/ which were printed in good bold 

 type, so that he was able to read them easily by the light of the 

 moon ; and now, after an interval of nearly sixty years, he recol- 

 lects reading for several hours, seated on the window-seat of his 

 bedroom, but frequently raising his eyes to look at the great bird 

 on the weather-cock of the spire. A plot, it appears, was made 

 by some to shoot the eagle with a rifle-ball, and a party went up 

 for that purpose to the ' eight-doors/ or in other words to the 

 place where the base of the spire rests on the tower ; but happily 

 their endeavours were baffled by the large ball which projects 

 itself below the cross ; and early in the morning the eagle floated 

 away southward, unharmed. * 



* Page 39. 



