192 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



man wrote again on the 26th of May: 'I am going a day's 

 journey into the Wilderness in pursute of the Eagle.' 



A Newcastle paper of November 1788 states : 'Last week a 

 gentleman fowling on a mountain near Skiddaw perceived a 

 very large brown eagle dart from a precipice and attack a well- 

 grown lamb of this season, which he seized in his talons, and 

 was just going to mount, when the gentleman fired and 

 wounded him in the pinion of the left wing. He then 

 approached the magnanimous bird, who held his prey, and, 

 with a kind of menacing look, stared in his face for some time. 

 The sportsman, willing to rescue the poor lamb, and equally 

 loth to destroy so noble a creature, pulled a cord from his 

 pocket, which he threw with some danger over the head of the 

 Eagle ; ' and so secured the bird. 



The local newspapers have recorded a few other Eagles from 

 time to time, as, for example, a bird seen by Mr. Dunn of 

 Leeds, and Wright, a Keswick guide, on Skiddaw, in May 

 1844. 1 Another was seen at Esthwaite in March 1845. 2 It 

 is difficult to credit a statement independently furnished by 

 Dickinson, that about this very time the late Fletcher Greenip 

 of Portinscale saw three eagles in company, near the head of 

 Bassenthwaite lake, during frost. The statement that Joseph 

 Summers of Castlerigg saw seven eagles in company about the 

 same period is an obvious invention. More weight attaches, no 

 doubt, to the experience of Thompson, who wrote : ' In the more 

 recent books on British Ornithology, there is not any notice of 

 eyries, either of the golden or sea eagle, in England at the 

 present time ; but from my having seen two birds of one or 

 other of these species (though not sufficiently near to be specifi- 

 cally determined), on the 13th of July 1835, about the English 

 lakes, they most probably breed in that quarter. One appeared 



1 Carlisle Journal, May 11, 1S44. Mr. T. Lindsay of Eskdale retains 

 a vivid recollection of a solitary Eagle which frequented Scawfell for a 

 period of about two years, 1844-46. It paid almost daily visits to Drigg 

 Common in search of rabbits, and could often be seen crossing Muncaster 

 Fell on the return journey to Scawfell. This was the only Eagle that 

 Lindsay ever saw during a long lifetime spent entirely among our 

 mountains. 



2 Carlisle Patriot, March 14, 1845. 



