20 
FALCONIM. 
taming two eggs. These birds were accused of committing great 
devastation, “ killing a sheep every week/’ and very often sweeping 
down and bearing off a goose from the farm-yard. One of the finest 
sea eagles which has come under my own observation, was shot 
in that neighbourhood, (near Dundrum,) on the 13th of January, 
1845, when in the act of pursuing the fowls in a farmer’s yard. 
This bird was preserved for the late Marquis of Downshire, who 
kindly supplied me with all the information respecting it. “ It 
weighed 10-g- lbs., measured three feet from the point of the beak 
to the end of the tail, and seven feet four inches from tip to tip 
of the wings.” 
When in June, 1834, at Acliil Head (Mayo), which is fondly, 
but erroneously, believed by the inhabitants of the island, to ap- 
proximate the shores of the western world more nearly than any 
other European land, and stretching out afar into the Atlantic, 
is rendered sublime, less from altitude than from the utter barren- 
ness of its desolate and inaccessible cliffs, a suitable accompani- 
ment to the scene appeared in a sea eagle, which rose startled 
from her nest on the ledge of an adjoining precipice. Mr. R. 
Ball, my companion on the occasion, thus referred to this eagle in 
a lecture delivered before the Zoological Society in Dublin : — 
“One of the most striking and valuable results of practical 
ornithology, is the extraordinary manner in which the scenery 
where a bird is first observed becomes impressed on the memory. 
I can see in my mind’s eye the whole scene, when peering over a 
precipice at Achil Head, a sea eagle started from the rocks below, 
and ascended in spirals to a great height above Saddle Head, 
which towered over us.. It was sunset of a summer evening. 
We were weary, hungry, foiled in the object which led us to the 
Head, and many miles from the place where we were to get food 
and rest. Yet the sight of this bird in its native wilds at once 
refreshed us, and I at least felt inspirited and repaid for a day of 
great fatigue. I could then enjoy the beauty of the scene, the 
boldness of the rocks, the vastness of' the great western ocean, 
dashing its waves in broken foam from the American coasts. The 
scathed majestic Saddle Head, the setting sun, the wild grandeur 
