THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 
9 
year, as shot at Curraghmore, the seat of the Marquis of Water- 
ford, early in June, 1837 ; and, at the end of the same month, an 
eyrie situated in the rocks above Counshenane* lake in the Come- 
ragh mountains, county of Waterford, was robbed of an eaglet of 
this species. On the 21st of April, 1841, he sent persons to the 
same eyrie to procure eggs, who succeeded in obtaining two, 
which seemed to be about a fortnight laid, and were very dissimi- 
lar in size and appearance. He states that this bird is met with 
in Knockmeledown, and the Galtee mountains, and is occasionally 
seen far from its haunts. In the "Fauna of Cork,” it is said to 
breed on the borders of that county, and in Tipperary. 
I have never known the eyrie of the golden eagle to be in ma- 
rine cliffs in Ireland. Mr. Macgillivray, who, in his History of 
British Birds, gives interesting particulars on this species from 
personal observation, states, on the authority of Mr. Forbes of 
South Bonaldshay, that it breeds on the headlands of Orkney (vol. 
3, p. 230). 
Docility , Sfc . — In the two excellent works, "Gardens and Mena- 
geries of the Zoological Society,” and "Illustrations of British 
Ornithology,” the golden eagle is characterized as indocile: in the 
latter work, Mr. Selby speaks from his own experience of two 
individuals which were kept by him for some years. But my 
friend Bichard Langtry, Esq. of Fortwilliam, near Belfast, had in 
1838 a bird of this species, which was extremely docile and trac- 
table.f It was taken in the summer of that year from a nest in 
Inverness-shire, { and came into his possession about the end of 
September. This bird at once became attached to its owner, and 
after being about a month in his possession, was given full liberty, 
— a high privilege to a golden eagle having the use of its wings, 
—but which was not abused, as it came to the lure whenever call- 
* Coumshingaun of Ordnance Survey Map. 
t Mr. Yarrell (Brit. Birds, vol. i. p. 13,) after alluding to Mr. Selby’s birds, re- 
marks, that in the menageries of the Garden of the Zoological Society of London, 
where there are two golden and four white-tailed eagles, the keepers find the former 
the more tractable of the two species. 
X At Aberarder, in this county, I saw r a golden eagle displayed among the numer- 
ous “winged vermin” on the gable end of the shooting lodge, in September, 
1842. 
