EAGLE. 
151 
most regained the power of its wings, but the other was taken alive by 
a Highlander, who witnessed the scene, and who waited till the wind 
had wafted him near the shore. This curious account we received 
from an officer who bought the Eag-le. 
Althoug-h this is an extremely bold bird, it will not venture to con- 
tend with a dog- or a fox in its natural wild state. An Eagle and a fox 
were observed to he regaling themselves on the carcase of a goat, that 
had fallen down a precipice in the Highlands of Scotland. The latter 
frequently obliged the other to desist, and retreat a little, but it was 
not sufficiently alarmed to prevent returning ; and it occasionally threw 
itself into hold and picturesque attitudes of defence, spreading the wings 
and tail, and erecting every feather. 
Two hving Eagles were sent to us from Ireland, and were, on their 
arrival at Bristol, detained by an officer of excise, upon a plea that there 
was a duty upon all singing-birds. Had this happened on the other 
side of the water it might have been termed an Irish story. The un- 
fortunate birds would, however, have been starved at the custom-house, 
if application had not been made to the head of that department in the 
port of Bristol, offering to pay any demand for their release, if legally 
detained for their vocal abilities. By this officer it was most wisely 
determined, after some consideration, that Eagles could scarcely be con- 
sidered as singing birds. 
This is by far the most plentiful of the aquiline race, in the British 
dominions ; not a year passes hut many are shot in England. A speci- 
men killed on the Mendip hills, in Somersetshire, two years since, 
(1802,) was very small, probably a male. Its talons were blunt, as if 
worn in confinement. 
* In their native districts these noble birds are generally seen near the 
sea-shore, or upon the rocky precipices on the margin of the inland 
lakes, from whence they pounce upon the fish while swimming near 
the surface of the water. Aquatic birds also become their frequent prey. 
They generally choose the most inaccessible cliffs for building their 
nests, laying one and sometimes two eggs, entirely white and nearly 
the size of that of a goose ; one of these, in Selby’s possession, was laid 
by a bird after it had been in confinement twenty years. 
It is probable that it was the near resemblance of the young of the 
White Headed Eagle {Haliaetus leucocephalus, Savigny,) and our 
Eagle, which led Wilson to adopt the opinion that they are the same, 
“ in a different stage of colour,” fortified by observing the changes 
in -the plumage of several birds in confinement. One kept at Phila- 
