THE SEA. EAGLE. 
27 
food, they preferred rats to fish.* When not very hungry, they, 
after tasting the blackbird ( Turdus merula), showed a dislike to 
it, but that this did not arise from colour, was evident from black 
chickens being always as acceptable as others ; gray crows (Corvus 
cornix) were also disliked, though magpies {Corvus pica) were fa- 
vourite food.f On one occasion during rainy weather, they re- 
fused to eat for a few days, though at the same time they never 
retired to the shelter of their sheds, as buzzards {Buteo vulgaris') 
and peregrine falcons {Falco peregrinus ) did, which were kept 
along with them. One of these eagles, (a male,) killed four pet 
birds, his constant companions in the same enclosure : — these 
were a white owl, a kite, a buzzard, and a peregrine falcon, that 
when he was tied, J either alighted near him, or were carelessly 
fastened within his reach. The first intimation my friend had of 
the owl's death, was its legs (all else had been devoured) lying 
beside the post, where a few hours before he had seen their owner 
alive and well. The eagle had partly plucked the falcon prepara- 
tory to eating it, just as his master appeared in view, when he in- 
stantly sprang from the body of his victim, and further evinced 
the consciousness of his misdeed by allowing it to be carried off, 
* Fish, however, are in no little request with sea eagles. A correspondent has 
known a young bird to eat twenty gurnards ( Trigla gurnardus ) in a day. An eagle 
obtained in the Highlands of Scotland by Major Matthews (of Springvale, co. Down), 
and taken about with his regiment, had the audacity to drive away one of the soldier’s 
wives engaged in washing a dozen of herrings in the river near Fort George, and 
made a meal of them all. 
f The peregrine falcon also shows distaste and partiality to birds nearly allied ; 
thus the blackbird and ring-ouzel (: Turdus torquatus) are disliked, while the song 
thrush (T. musicus) is much relished, and, though it will kill and eat the landrail 
{Crex prat ensis) and wagtails ( Motacilla Yarrellii) when hungry, it is averse to 
them, and has in some instances been observed to eject them from the stomach. My 
friend, the Baron De Selys Longchamps, a very distinguished naturalist, has remarked 
to me with reference to Belgium, where these birds are much used at table, that the 
song thrush is excellent eating, and the redwing (T. iliacus) is also good ; but that 
the fieldfare (T. pilaris) is not so, and the blackbird is decidedly bad : — the falcons, 
the eagles, and the Baron, are therefore all of the same opinion. According to M. 
Duval-Jouve, blackbirds fatten and acquire an excellent flavour from feeding on the 
fruit of the myrtle, in Provence. (Zoologist, Oct. 1845, p. 1119.) In the north of 
Ireland, indeed, these birds are by many persons considered very good, which may be 
owing to their feeding much on the nutritious mollusca found about the hedges and 
covers they frequent. 
\ When the golden eagle, sea eagle, peregrine falcon, kite, buzzard, and kestrel, 
all of which Mr. Langtry had at the same time, were at liberty, they never molested 
each other. 
