22 falconid^;. 



are occasionally found in connection with the next step to 

 the sublime, — the ridiculous ; an example of which we have in 

 one being shot by a man from his bed, as it was feeding on a 

 dead pig. 



We were assured by Serjeant Croker, of the Constabulary, 

 that about six months before we visited Ballycroy, an eagle, when 

 distant a few yards only from him and several persons, carried off 

 a hen from that village. He was informed that a similar occurrence 

 had several times taken place. True, we were long before told 

 this, and much more, respecting the eagles of the district, in the 

 Wild Sports of the West (letter 19); but I was not aware whether 

 the author intended his admirably graphic narrative, — almost 

 " too good to be true," — to be understood as literally correct. It 

 is there remarked, that " the eagle in the gray of morning sweeps 

 through the cabins, and never fails in carrying off some prey;" * 

 that " to black fowls, eagles appear particularly attached ; and the 

 villagers (of Dugurth) avoid as much as possible rearing birds of 

 that colour " (p. 107). This partiality, if such there really be, is 

 probably owing to the black fowls being the most readily seen by 

 the eagle, both from a distance and when with all his fears upon 

 him, — for well he knows the evil of such ways, — he makes a sud- 

 den stoop to the poultry about the cabin-door. 



Mr. M'Calla, writing from Rounclstone, Connemara (Galway), 

 in 1841, supplied me with the following information in substance 

 respecting this species. 



It is common throughout that district ; has its eyrie in cliffs 

 rising from the sea ; in trees growing on the small islands of 

 inland lakes, and in once instance built on a green islet without 

 any trees. t A pair has bred for a number of years on the marine 

 island of Boffin, and from the nest being inaccessible, a brood of 

 eaglets has been annually reared ; these have always left the island 



* Dr. Laurence Edmonston in a communication to Macgillivray's Hist, of Brit. 

 Birds (vol. 3, p. 231), on the sea eagle in Shetland, makes a precisely similar state- 

 ment. 



t Mr. Macgillivray, in the third volume of his History of British Birds, gives a 

 very full and interesting account of this species from personal ohservation, and men- 

 tions, that "on a fiat islet in a small lake in Harris, one of the Hebrides, a pair of 

 these birds bred for many years, although there are lofty crags in the neighbourhood." 



