THE EAGLE. 
127 
Shiant Islands, a cluster of wild and retired rocks, 
situated amongst the Hebrides, or Western Islands of 
Scotland, 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 themselves, 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 par- 
ticular 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 de- 
serted 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 
