THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
amongst them. I think it was just a bit of play on the part of the eagle, 
for it made no attempt to strike any of the deer, who, on their part, only 
went a short distance and reassembled again. The attitude of deer towards 
the golden eagle is somewhat curious at times. Possibly when they think 
he means business, they are much afraid of him, and at others they take 
no notice of his presence. I have seen an eagle fly slowly past a herd and 
alight on a rock beside them without their raising their heads from feed. 
On another occasion I have seen a whole herd rush away as if in panic 
when an eagle came into view. George Henderson, stalking at Braulen 
a few years ago, saw a herd rise to their feet and dash away in terror, 
pursued by an eagle for a considerable distance. There are many in- 
stances of hinds being killed by eagles, whilst calves in summer are a 
favourite prey, and a description of the efforts of an eagle to steal a calf 
from a herd and being successfully frustrated by a gallant hind are related 
in “ British Deer and their Horns.” I witnessed the scene in the Black Mount 
Forest in July, 1890. There are two well authenticated instances of a golden 
eagle attacking a full grown stag, though this must be very rare and some- 
what foolish on the part of the bird. Eagles have now been so well preserved 
in deer forests owing to their beauty and usefulness in keeping down 
the blue hares, that they are now in danger of becoming a nuisance to 
the sheep farmer and lover of grouse and ptarmigan. 
Some years ago I was stalking a stag at Black Mount when I came on 
an eagle sitting on a rock within ten yards of us. We passed him and then 
found a fox coiled up and fast asleep within thirty yards of the stag which 
I shot. 
On this forest for many years one of a pair of golden eagles which had 
an eyrie on the Eagle Hill, Glenkinglass, was nearly pure white, the 
only instance of albinism in this species I have ever heard of. I saw it 
myself once at a great distance, but still within such view that I could dis- 
tinguish the fact that it was of abnormal colour. 
Above Larig Ashton we lingered for more than an hour in the hope that 
we might discover ‘‘the big stag,” but though deer were there in plenty, 
he had not returned to his favourite resort and was doubtless hidden 
somewhere up in the western corries. We had, however, hardly left our 
point of vantage when we noticed five stags in a small dip above the steep 
faces below. They were in a place where a shot was possible, and on a 
close inspection we thought that the first, a good ten -pointer, was worthy 
of attention. But nothing could go right to-day; just as I pressed the 
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