2 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



eastward, but have not the dates. In a letter from Mr. R. 

 N. DenniS; dated February 22nd, 1855, he informs me that 

 an Eagle was seen by one of the men of the Coastguard, near 

 Seaford. The bird had established himself on a high spit of 

 beach, which became an island at high tide, to which he 

 carried his prey in order to dine in security, and from 

 whence he kept a vigilant look-out on all around. He was 

 quite unapproachable, but the Preventive men could watch 

 all his proceedings with the glass with the greatest ease, as 

 he was in full view of them from their station-house. 



On the 26th of December, 1864, as I was in a vehicle 

 about a mile and a half eastward of Henfield, my attention 

 was attracted to a large brown mass, near the top of an oak 

 tree. As I could not satisfy myself that it was a bird at all, 

 I asked the driver what he thought of it. He, not hearing 

 what I said, immediately stopped the carriage, by which 

 means the brown mass, being only about a hundS-ed yards off, 

 was startled, and, on its. rising up, we could distinctly see 

 that it was an Eagle, and that the tail was entirely white. 

 It then glided away tow/irds a large wood, and we last saw it 

 Hying eastward ; but I was informed that it was seen again 

 the next day, not far from the spot where we first observed 

 it. This bird was, of course, adult; and as I learn, on 

 the best authority, that in no other instance, of late years, 

 has an adult Sea- Eagle been reported in England in a wild 

 state, this circumstance rather leads to the suggestion that 

 the one we saw might have escaped from confinement. In 

 Mr. Knox's O. R. (pp. 40, 43) several occurrences of the 

 Sea-Eagle are mentioned, viz. : — the one before referred to 

 at the Dolphin Hotel at Shoreham ; another, shot in 1841 at 

 Rottingdean, where it had been observed for about a month ■ 

 a third, killed at Windmill Hill, in the parish of Wartling 

 in January 1844; as well as a fourth on Pevensey Level 

 about 1845. Beside these, one is mentioned as having been 



