190 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Supposing Edward Sisson to be then about seventy (as he recol- 

 lected him as a vigorous sportsman, it is not likely that he was any 

 more), it appears highly probable that Edward Sisson was the 

 man who shot one of the identical Eagles mentioned by his con- 

 tempory Kichardson. To return to Mr. Richardson, he further 

 assures us that a bird of this species was shot ' with duck shot, 

 only one of which went through his head ; he measured eight 

 feet three inches between the tips of the wings. The following 

 year he shot another also on the wing, considerably less.' 

 Clarke, a contemporary, states independently that the largest he 

 ever knew to be shot measured 6 feet 8 inches between the tips 

 of the extended wings ; adding that he had seen Eagles at every 

 season of the year, ' though they are seldomer seen in Summer 

 than in Winter, when the snow forces them down to the valleys 

 to seek provisions.' Mrs. Eadcliffe writes that in Patterdale she 

 heard of Eagles in 1794 : * We were told that the eagles had 

 forsaken their aeries in this neighbourhood [Patterdale] and in 

 Borrowdale, and are fled to the Isle of Man ; but one had been 

 in Patterdale the day before, which, not being at its full 

 growth, could not have arrived from a great distance.' 1 Richard- 

 son definitely expresses this opinion, ' that most, if not all the 

 eagles amongst these hills, are of the Falco Chryscetus, or Golden 

 Eagle species. Mr. Gray says, the Borrowdale Eagles are the 

 Erne (Falco Albiulla). One has this year (1793) been caught 

 alive, and is now in the possession of Mr. Thomas Hutton of 

 Keswick, which is unquestionably the Falco Chryscetos, or Golden 

 Eagle.' 2 This was no doubt the bird which the author of the 

 Observations chiefly Lithological, found stuffed in Button's museum 

 on his visit to Keswick in 1803: 'This Falco Chrysaetos was a 

 very young eagle, which Hutton had bred ; he said he used to 

 feed it with rats, cats, etc. The bird killed immediately, and then 

 sucked their blood ; this was the only drink he would ever take. 

 The eagles have now [1803] entirely left this country; whether 

 they are gone to Scotland, Ireland, Snowdon, or a longer journey, 

 I have no opportunity of ascertaining.' At the sale of Cros- 

 thwaite's museum at Keswick, there was exposed among miscel- 

 laneous articles, 'Lot 258, upper bill and talons of a very large 

 1 Tour in 1794, p. 423. 2 History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 450. 



