200 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Borrowdale ; but thirty four-years ago [say, 1785] they finally 

 abandoned it for Eskdale. At the last-mentioned place they were 

 again disturbed, and the larger bird being afterwards shot, the 

 other fled and never returned.' x The late Mr. Jonathan Otley 

 used to say that Eagles bred in Cumberland up to 1791. The 

 incident of the birds establishing themselves in Eskdale is 

 separately reported by Housman, who states in a note, published 

 in 1794, 'On the summits of these mountains [Wasdale, Nether- 

 wasdale and Eskdale], are many wild cats, foxes, and martins ; 

 some eagles. . . . An eagle's nest was taken about three years 

 ago, and the eaglets were sent to Muncaster House.' 2 Green 

 alludes also to the Eagles killing water-fowl on the Derwent in 

 winter, to an eagle carrying a shepherd's dog into the air, and 

 another Eagle wounded by that dog's owner near Langthwaite. 

 Though Dr. Heysham must have been in communication with 

 many persons who had seen the Eagles of the Lake district, he 

 contents himself with recording that the ' Cinereous or white- 

 tailed Eagle, Vultur albiulla] bred ' among the rocks, in the 

 neighbourhood of Keswick, almost every year, and feeds, chiefly, 

 upon land animals, but sometimes on fish. When taken young, 

 and tamed, the tail does not become white till it is several 

 years old. Dr. Law, the present bishop of Elphin, when he 

 resided in Carlisle, received a young one from Borrowdale, 

 upwards of twenty years ago. The tail did not become white 

 till it was six years old. When his lordship left Carlisle, he 

 presented it to Dr. Graham, of Clargill. It died in the year 

 1793, aged nineteen years.' The bird was therefore taken in 

 1774. If this note of the doctor be held to be disappointing, 

 considering the ample opportunities he enjoyed for obtaining 

 exact information, it must be confessed that T. C. Heysham 

 treats the subject even more curtly than his father. At least, 

 the only allusion that has come to light in his writings exists in 

 a letter written to Henry Doubleday in 1833. He says, 'The 

 Sea Eagle which used formerly to breed jn the vicinity of the 

 Cumberland Lakes has, I have every reason to believe, been 

 extirpated for very many years.' Some twenty years later 



1 Guide to the Lakes, vol. ii. pp. 142, 143. 

 - Hutchinson, History of Cumberland, p. 581. 



