BIRDS 2 1 5 



he examined the evidence regarding our local Eagles gathered 

 together in this volume for the first time. Still less had 

 he considered the physical character of Whinfield Park. 

 Whinfield Park was originally a wild heath or moss. It is 

 situated in a low-lying district, between the waters of the 

 Eamont and the Eden Eivers. It is at least twenty miles, even 

 in a * bee-line/ from the nearest haunts of the Cumbrian Eagles, 

 twelve miles from a former eyrie of the Sea Eagle in Haws water, 

 and at least sixteen miles from the former eyries of Eagles in 

 the Ulleswater district. It is not, therefore, ' in an Eagle country ; ' 

 and it is eight or nine miles in a bee-line from the nearest of 

 our lakes. The rivers in the neighbourhood are comparatively 

 small, and I am entirely unaware of any evidence that this 

 Eagle ever supports itself or its young by fishing in the streams 

 of such moderate dimensions. The park is represented on 

 Saxton's map as enclosed in 1576. We know that it had long 

 been imparked and was full of deer. It is hardly likely that the 

 Countess of Pembroke would preserve an eyrie of Eagles in her 

 deer park. The Ulleswater Eagles often lifted fawns from 

 Gowbarrow Park a century ago. The fact that Willughby 

 speaks of the Osprey of Whinfield Park as Halicetus sive Ossifraga, 

 renders it probable that he supposed the species to be really the 

 Sea Eagle. Is this surprising ? I hardly think that it is. Not 

 only had he never seen a dead specimen of the Whinfield Park 

 birds in the flesh, but he had not seen them on the wing. He 

 had not visited the locality. He derived his information from 

 some Westmorland worthy, who told him from common report 

 that the Osprey bred at Whinfell and fished in the Eamont and 

 Eden, as no doubt it did. Willughby knew of no true Ospreys 

 nesting in any other part of England : hence, relying on oral 

 information alone, he identified the Whinfell birds with the true 

 Sea Eagle. Had he taken the trouble to prosecute his inquiries 

 more thoroughly, he would have learnt that the Sea Eagle only 

 nested upon the most precipitous ledges in Lakeland. This 

 view becomes more certain when we remember that Machell, a 

 contemporary of Willughby, expressly mentions, among the 

 ' greater rarityes ' of Westmorland, the species which forms the 

 subject of this essay. Machell was the vicar of the parish of 



