1 2 FALCONID/E. 



tary, at my request, kindly supplied the following account of them 

 in July, 1845. 



"The great eagle-cage in the Garden of the Eoyal Zoological 

 Society of Ireland is 36 feet long, 16 broad, and 16 high, and 

 was erected at the expense of Sir Philip Crampton, Bart., as a 

 place for the exercise of the large Camivora, and consequently called 

 a Deambulatorium. It failed in its original object. A tigress placed 

 in it quailed, and seemed most anxious to regain her small den ; a 

 lioness and a leopard had to be forced into it. Sometime afterwards 

 I had seven Eagles placed in it as an experiment, and they seemed 

 to agree perfectly. To these, additions have been made for the 

 last four years, until the number now amounts to 17: viz., 3 

 Golden, 2 White-headed, and 12 Sea Eagles; for some time a 

 Choka Eagle was of the number, but it has since been removed 

 to a smaller cage. The eagles live together, if not in harmony, at 

 least in a sort of mutual respect towards each other. I know of 

 only one quarrel, and at this I happened to be present. A sea 

 eagle pounced on a golden eagle ; the latter threw itself on its 

 back, when the former with its talons seized it by the legs until 

 it seemed to faint in agony, while the assailant gave forth its 

 loudest barking cry in triumph. I had some difficulty in beating 

 tins bird off the other with a pole ; it was removed from the cage, 

 and shortly afterwards accidentally killed. On another occasion, a 

 golden eagle was found drowned in the bath, or large trough in 

 which the eagles delight to roll ; it was supposed by the keeper to 

 have been forced under water by one of the sea eagles, but more 

 probably it got cramped, as the birds seem often to carry their 

 bathing to excess. It is a remarkable fact, that a sea eagle but 

 one year old, seemed to be generally acknowledged as the superior 

 of the whole. This bird seized the first piece of food thrown into 

 the cage as its acknowledged right ; but should any other eagle 

 happen to get possession of it, the food was instantly given up on 

 the approach of the young one, which, when full grown, was 

 about the largest of the flock. The bathing of the eagles alluded 

 to is remarkable. On observing that these birds, which in mena- 

 geries are generally kept without water, exhibited a great desire 



