a falconid,e. 



panied by Robert Ball, Esq. of Dublin,) Lieutenant Reynolds of 

 the Preventive Service, a keen sportsman, and well acquainted 

 with birds, assured, us that one or two pair of golden eagles breed 

 annually in the island. When subsequently on the mountain of 

 Croaghpatrick, which volcano-like terminates in a magnificent 

 cone, and is in elevation the second in Connaught, we for a con- 

 siderable time observed a pair of these eagles soaring above its 

 summit. In the county of Kerry a few weeks afterwards, an eagle, 

 supposed to be of this species, was seen from the top of Manger- 

 ton, which towers above the lakes of Killarney. Mr. Robert Pat- 

 terson, of Belfast, when visiting this place in the previous autumn, 

 made the following note: — "Near to the little lake called, the 

 Devil's Punch- bowl, we disturbed, four eagles preying on a full- 

 grown sheep; they rose majestically into the air as we approached. 

 The people who were with us supposed that the sheep, being per- 

 haps sickly, had been killed by the eagles, — a supposition corro- 

 borated by the quantity of fleece scattered over the ground for 

 some yards in one direction. The flesh of the neck was complete- 

 ly removed, although that of every other part was untouched. 

 We were assured, that two eagles will occasionally pursue a hare, 

 one flying low and coursing it along the ground, the other keep- 

 ing perpendicularly above the terrified animal, and. occasionally 

 changing their places, until the hare is completely wearied out. 

 The same circumstance was mentioned a few days afterwards at 

 Tralee, and again at Monasterevan : my informant in every instance 

 stated the fact, not as a matter of hearsay, but as one which had 

 fallen under his own knowledge."* The golden eagle has now 

 become very scarce in Kerry. t 



A golden eagle was shot in Westmeath in Peb., 1838, when 

 accompanied by another ; and a fine specimen was in the autumn 

 of 1843 killed at Clontarf, near Dublin. Mr. Robert Davis, jun., 

 of Clonmel, notices a male bird in the plumage of the second 



* This practice is mentioned in the "Wild sports of the West;" (Letter 19) in the 

 work entitled " The Moor and the Loch ;" and in an article on " Highland Sports," 

 in the Quarterly Review for Dec. 1845, being a review of Scrope's " fiays aDd Nights 

 of Salmon Fishing," p. 103. 



f Mr. R. Chute. 



