BIRDS 201 



Miss Martineau wrote : ' We are unable to ascertain positively, 

 amidst conflicting testimony, whether any eagles at all remain 

 in the region. It appears that one has certainly been seen 

 within ten years ; and three gentlemen, two of whom are 

 travelled men and not likely to be mistaken in such a matter, 

 declare, that four years ago, they saw one sweep down from 

 Scaudale Fell into Kirkstone Pass, and rest on a crag in the 

 vale, some way above Brothers' Water. There is, however, a 

 preponderance of disbelief of there being now any nest and 

 settlement of eagles among the mountains of Westmoreland and 

 Cumberland.' 1 Mr. Brown of Carlisle informed me in 1890, 

 when in his seventy-first year, that as a boy he often heard the 

 stories current on the country side as to Eagles carrying off 

 lambs from the farmers in West Cumberland. I can only re- 

 affirm my belief that such Eagles as visited the mountains of 

 the Lake district during the first half of the present century 

 had their eyries in Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbright. Mr. J. 

 Fisher Crosthwaite informs me that ' there was a very fine 

 living Eagle belonging to the proprietors of Crosthwaite's 

 Museum which was caught at Maryport, and was supposed to 

 have come over from Scotland. The bird died of the moult. 

 It was sent to a celebrated bird-stuffer, and he never returned 

 it. The late Mr. Joseph Pockington, who built Barrow House, 

 near Keswick, saw it in the collection of the person to whom it 

 was sent. He identified it, and claimed it for the Crosthwaite's 

 Museum, but it was never returned.' 



Although the available information regarding eyries of Eagles 

 refers to the central portion of the lake mountains, it is certain 

 that stragglers have occasionally made their appearance in out- 

 lying districts. 



The map of Westmorland by Bobt. Morden, included in 

 Camden's Britannia, second edition, vol. ii., 1722, prints an 

 ' Eagle Scar ' behind Dufton and Murton Pikes, near Appleby. 



A keeper named Gill winged a young Sea Eagle near Alston 

 in 1834. John Borrow reported to T. C. Heysham in April 

 1844: 'An eagle was seen at Withamston about 2 months 

 since, near the place where Mr. Gill killed one a few years 



Lakes, pp. 153-155. 



