20 FALCONID./E. 



taining two eggs. These birds were accused of committing great 

 devastation, " killing a sheep every week/' and very often sweeping 

 down and bearing off a goose from the farm-yard. One of the finest 

 sea eagles which has come under my own observation, was shot 

 in that neighbourhood, (near Dundrum,) on the 13th of January, 

 1845, when in the act of pursuing the fowls in a farmer's yard. 

 This bird was preserved for the late Marquis of Downshire, who 

 kindly supplied me with all the information respecting it. " It 

 weighed 10| lbs., measured three feet from the point of the beak 

 to the end of the tail, and seven feet four inches from tip to tip 

 of the wings." 



When in June, 1834, at Achil Head (Mayo), which is fondly, 

 but erroneously, believed by the inhabitants of the island, to ap- 

 proximate the shores of the western world more nearly than any 

 other European land, and stretching out afar into the Atlantic, 

 is rendered sublime, less from altitude than from the utter barren- 

 ness of its desolate and inaccessible cliffs, a suitable accompani- 

 ment to the scene appeared in a sea eagle, which rose startled 

 from her nest on the ledge of an adjoining precipice. Mr. R. 

 Ball, my companion on the occasion, thus referred to this eagle in 

 a lecture delivered before the Zoological Society, in Dublin : — 

 "One of the most striking and valuable results of practical 

 ornithology, is the extraordinary manner in which the scenery 

 where a bird is first observed becomes impressed on the memory. 

 I can see in my mind's eye the whole scene, when peering over a 

 precipice at Achil Head, a sea eagle started from the rocks below, 

 and ascended in spirals to a great height above Saddle Head, 

 which towered over us. It was sunset of a summer evening. 

 We were weary, hungry, foiled in the object which led us to the 

 Head, and many miles from the place where we were to get food 

 and rest. Yet the sight of this bird in its native wilds at once 

 refreshed us, and I at least felt inspirited and repaid for a day of 

 great fatigue. I could then enjoy the beauty of the scene, the 

 boldness of the rocks, the vastness of the great western ocean, 

 dashing its waves in broken foam from the American coasts. The 

 scathed majestic Saddle Head, the setting sun, the wild grandeur 



