2S8 
MALACOPTERYGII, — ^SALMONID^. 
probably tlie fishing Eagle or Osprey. A curious 
anecdote recorded by the author of Wild Sports 
of the West/’ would intimate that victory does 
not always fall to the same side, Some years 
since a herdsman, on a very sultry day in July, 
while looking for a missing sheep, observed an 
Eagle posted on a bank that overhung a pool. 
Presently the bird stooped and seized a Salmon, 
and a violent struggle ensued ; when the herd 
reached the spot, he found the Eagle pulled under 
water by the strength of the fish, and the calm- 
ness of the day, joined to drenched plumage, ren- 
dered him unable to extricate himself. With a 
stone the peasant broke the Eagle’s pinion, and 
actually secured the spoiler and his victim, for he 
found the Salmon dying in his grasp.” A grey- 
haired peasant familiar with flood and field told 
the same writer that he had remarked the Eagles 
while engaged in fishing. They were wont to 
choose a small ford upon a rivulet, and, posted on 
either side, would wait patiently for the Salmon 
to pass over the shallows. Their watch was never 
fruitless ; — many a Salmon he had seen, in its 
transit from the sea to the lake above the ford, 
suddenly transferred from its native element to 
the Eagle’s wild aerie in the lofty clifi* that beetles 
over the romantic waters of Glencullen.^ 
We shall close our notice of this interesting 
Family with a species scarcely less valued by 
anglers than the Salmon, the speckled Trout, 
{Salmo fario, Linn.), one of the most crafty, vora- 
cious, and swift of our fluviatile fishes. 
According to Alexandre Dumas, Trout are 
® Wild Sports of the W^est, i. 195. 
f New Sport. Mag, N. S. iii. 242. 
