THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 
5 
his talons. A trap, baited once with a rabbit, and again with a 
hare, was set for this eagle, and on each of these animals he 
pounced, but finding that they would not rise with him, — in con- 
sequence of their being held down by the trap, — he immediately left 
them. Mr. Adams, hearing that this eagle had killed several of a 
neighbour's ducks, lost little time in obtaining one for his 
trap, and with this tempting bait secured him. Upon the fourth 
eagle the keeper came by chance when out shooting. This bird 
flew overhead, and was fired at from about twenty yards distance; 
the shot from the first barrel bereft him of many feathers, and by 
the contents of the second he was severely wounded, but able to 
fly off. Some men who were near, having told the keeper that 
they had seen an eagle mobbed by magpies, he was eventually dis- 
covered by the great number of these birds collected about the 
place on the heath where he lay dead, with outstretched wings. 
Only one sea eagle was obtained within the same period at Glen- 
arm Park. On the 14th of Oct., 1835, I saw an adult specimen 
of the golden eagle, which was trapped the day before at Claggan 
(Antrim). It was accompanied by two others, but the attempt to 
capture them was unsuccessful. 
By the late Dr. McDonnell and another friend, both of whom 
well recollected the circumstance, I have been assured that the 
plan adopted by the Kerry peasant for supporting his family in a 
season of scarcity,* was successfully resorted to about thirty years 
ago at Glenariff, in the county of Antrim. One of a pair of eaglets 
taken from a nest there was so placed, that its parents during the 
summer supplied it with rabbits and hares in such abundance, that 
its owner obtained, in addition to what the bird required, a suffici- 
ency of animal food for himself and his family. The old birds 
did not alight with their prey, but circling for some time above 
the eaglet, apparently calculating the distance, they dropped the 
food within the limited reach of its chain. 
A sporting friend, who was eye-witness to the fact, assures me 
that when out hunting among the Belfast mountains many years 
ago, an eagle, which from the darkness of its plumage he concluded 
* Smith’s Kerry, p. 97. 
