106 
THE EAGLE. 
did not learn whether these Eagles were in the habit of 
sparing lambs, kids, &c.,in their own immediate neighbour- 
hood, which it has been said they do in some places. Thus, 
in the Shiant Islands, a cluster of wild and retired rocks, 
situated amongst the Hebrides, or western islands of Scot- 
land, the natives assert that the Eagles, which are, or rather 
were, very numerous there, particularly in the breeding 
season, scrupulously abstained from providing their young 
ones with animals belonging to the island in which they 
had taken up their abode, invariably transporting them 
from neighbouring islands, often some miles distant. Their 
mode of catching the mountain deer was by pouncing down 
and fixing their talons between the poor animal’s horns, 
flapping at the same time with their powerful wings, which 
so terrified the deer, that they lost all command over them- 
selves, and setting off at full speed, usually tumbled down 
some rock, where they were either killed, or so disabled as 
to become an easy prey to the Eagles. 
Probably this instinctive mode of catching running animals 
is common to all large birds of prey, and may have led to 
the introduction of it in some parts of India, where the 
natives are very fond of hawking, and train their hunting 
Hawks so well, that one particular Falcon, called the Chirk, 
is taught to strike an antelope, a beautiful species of small 
deer, and retard its speed, by fastening on its head, till the 
greyhounds come up. 
But a still more extraordinary mode, by which the Eagle 
contrives to kill even oxen, is mentioned as often witnessed in 
Heligoland, a small and now deserted rocky island in the 
German Ocean, off the coast of Denmark. Persons resident 
there state that it first flies away to the sea, and then 
plunging into the waves, returns to land, where it rolls itself 
on the shore till its wings are quite covered with sand. It 
then rises again, and hovers over its victim. When close to 
it, it shakes its wings, and thus scatters the gravel and sand 
into the eyes of the ox, while it adds to the fright of the 
animal by blows with its powerful wings. The blinded animal 
becomes stupified, and runs about quite raving, and, at length, 
