WEDGE^TiULED EAGLE (EAGLE-HAWK). 
superabundance of food (rats), there were decidedly more than usual. Not 
only that, but he found this year what he never saw before, and that was two 
nests with three eggs in, and one nest with three big, strong youngsters.” 
Mellor {ih., p. 163), writing of Tasmania, states : “ The Wedge-tailed 
Eagle {Uroaetus audax) has also a bad name in the district, and is said to 
have carried off a small pig to its aerie,” while Hill {ih., p. 177), of Victoria, 
surpasses this : “ On one occasion a large male bird was seen to hunt a calf 
three or four months old, while its mate flew from tree to tree, watching the 
proceedings. But for the timely arrival of the owner, there is little doubt 
that the calf would have been killed.” 
A much more pleasing phase of this bird’s life is put on record in the 
same place (p. 209), thus : “ At the November meeting of the South 
Australian Ornithological Association the value of the common Wedge-tailed 
Eagle {Uroaetus audax), as a rabbit-destroyer, was discussed. The members 
fully conflrmed a report by the Inspector of Fisheries that great nmnbers 
of rabbits were killed by a single pair of these birds for food while rearing 
their brood of young. It was contended that, although these birds 
occasionally secured a young lamb, the amount of good they did fully 
compensated for this, and in the majority of cases it was thought that they 
killed only weakly lambs, or those that had lost their mothers and would 
eventually die. In many cases they picked up the dead carcasses of freshly- 
dropped lambs. It was represented that infinitely more sheep and lambs 
died from the effects of shortage of food supplies, under the influence of 
rabbits, than were killed by the Eagles, whose energies in destroying the 
rodents increased the possibilities of grass fodder, and therefore it behoved 
the farmers to protect the Eagles as useful birds.” 
The succeeding nmnber of the Emu (Vol. VII., p. 2, 1907) contained 
Batey’s account of these birds as follows : “ This great bird was very 
numerous in 1846. Shot-guns could have reduced it in a very slight degree ; 
good rifles would, but we did not use that kind of firearm those \\ days. 
Though Eagles were ever so plentiful, my tally was only four. I do not 
suppose my late father accounted for more than six in his day. When 
strychnine was introduced, however, it rapidly balanced accounts with these 
destructive birds. During the lambing of 1850, on the Emu Creek, my father 
poisoned dead lambs, and by the time dropping was finished I had 14 of the 
great birds laid in a row. It was ascertained that an Eagle’s method of 
killing a young lamb was to drive its powerful talons through the skull of the 
defenceless creature. The bird then stood on the victim, broke into the 
fore part, and, working to the rear, if undisturbed, stripped the flesh, leaving 
only skin and skeleton. My experience of Wedge-tails covers a lifetime. 
107 
