GOLDEN EAGLE. 



209 



The Golden Eagle is said to be not unfrequent in the mountainous 

 parts of Ireland and Scotland ; but we suspect it to be more rare than 

 is generally imagined, and has undoubtedly been confounded with the 

 sea eagle. It breeds in the most inaccessible rocks, and lays three or 

 four white eggs. Selby says two, of a greyish white colour, clouded 

 with spots of reddish brown. 



Smith, in the History of Kerry, says, a poor man in that county got a 

 comfortable subsistence for his family, during a summer of famine, out 

 of an eagle's nest. 



Mr. Pennant informs us it is frequent in Scotland, and adds, that it 

 is very destructive to deer, which it will seize between the horns, and, 

 by incessantly beating it with its wings, soon makes a prey of the 

 harassed animal ; that it builds in cliffs of rocks near the deer forests, 

 and makes great havoc not only amongst them, but also the white hares 

 and ptarmigans. 



Mr. Willughby gives a curious account of the nest of this species 

 found in the woodlands, near the river Derwent, in the Peak of Derby- 

 shire. He says it was made of large sticks, lined with two layers of 

 rushes, between which was one of heath ; that in it was one young and 

 an addle egg, and by them a lamb, a hare, and three heath-poults. 



Instances have been recorded of infants being carried to their nests ; 

 and in the Orkneys there is a law which entitles any person killing one 

 of these birds, to a hen out of every house in the parish in which it is 

 killed. They are remarkable for their longevity, and abstinence from 

 food. Mr. Pennant mentions one enduring hunger for twenty-one days. 



*This Eagle does not appear to be so plentiful, even in North Britain, 

 as the Sea Eagle, and probably is confined to the Highlands of Scot- 

 land, where it usually breeds in the most inaccessible parts of the 

 mountainous cliffs ; sometimes on that stupendous mountain so well 

 known to all the northern tourists, Ben-Lomond. Upon the summit 

 of that mountain an Eagle's egg was found amongst the rocks, without 

 any nest, supposed to belong to this species, and which must have been 

 prematurely dropped. As we were sporting in the neighbourhood of 

 Ben-Lomond, on the summit of the lesser mountains that form its base, 

 a grouse, (Tetrao Scoticus,) was wounded, and flew with difficulty 

 eighty or a hundred paces. An Eagle, apparently of this species, per- 

 ceiving the laborious flight of the grouse, descended with rapid wing 

 from the adjacent lofty cliffs before our guns were re-loaded, and, in 

 defiance of the shouts made to deter him, carried off his prey. 



In another part of the Western Highlands of Scotland, we had an 

 opportunity of witnessing the powers of the flight of this bird in 



p 



