^6 Birds. 



yards up and down llie street. From its motions it appeared to be 

 catching insects, its flight agreeing exactly with that of the swallow 

 when so engaged. Several vehicle-drivers tried to cut it down, but it 

 wheeled and dodged about, and nimbly avoided their attempts to strike 

 it. The afternoon was clear, but the sun did not shine. It is proba- 

 ble that this night-harbinger came up with some of the hop-waggons 

 which usually stop at the spot ; be this as it may, its dancing amused 

 me and a host of wonderers besides. — Alfred Lambert; 6, Trinity St. 

 December 3, 1842. 



Note on a Weasel. One day in June, 1842, as a lady was sitting 

 in a room at llford, the w indows of which opened to the ground, she 

 was very much surprised by the appearance of a weasel (Mustela vul- 

 garis), which, after trying round the wdndow^ for an entrance, stood 

 up on its hind legs against one of the panes of glass, and remained 

 there, notwithstanding the furious barking of a little terrier that was 

 in the room, until the window was opened, when he started off very 

 leisurely, but was overtaken and killed by the dog. — W. T., London, 

 December, 1842. [In future, all communications, unless editorial, 

 must have the writer's name and address. — Ed.'] 



Note on the capture of the Sea Eagle (Haliaetos albicilla) in Shetland. 

 By Thomas Edmonston, jun. Esq. 



In these days the respective monarchs of the quadruped and bird 

 kingdoms — the lion and the eagle, are not invested w'lXh the shadowy 

 mantle of super-animal bravery and magnanimity with which the old- 

 er naturalists, as well as poets, loved to clothe them. On the contra- 

 ry, the courage of the African king of the desert has been more than 

 once daringly and distinctly impugned ; and even the eagle, whom 

 w^e find gravely described in works of no very ancient date, as of much 

 too noble a nature to fear even the " human form divine," and having 

 far too much respect for his dignity (or his stomach) to touch food 

 which had not been slaughtered by his own royal self, he is sunk into 

 a place but little higher than the vultures — with whom in fact the great 

 and discerning mind of the first of naturalists, Linnaeus, associated 

 him, and certainly with as much justice as some more modern syste- 

 matists, who have classed him with the falcons — and found not only to 

 be glad to partake of a carrion banquet with the raven and the hoody, 

 but also to be endowed with no more of the faculty of courage, when 

 pitted against his equals or superiors, than those who regard discre- 

 tion as the better part of valour. 



