now EAGLES SECURE THEIR PREY 139 
get hungry, sometimes make such a noise that they 
can be heard at a considerable distance, and that 
he beHeved this attracts the eagles, particularly 
if their eyrie in which they are rearing their young 
happens to be in the vicinity. He went on to 
say that he thought this accounted for his some- 
times finding fox dens containing only one or 
two cubs instead of the usual number of three to 
seven. There is no doubt that eagles sometimes 
attack deer calves, fixing their talons in their 
victim's neck or back and striking the calf with 
their wings. They frequently hunt in pairs, and 
have been seen to drive the calf over a precipice. 
On rare occasions eagles have been known to 
attack a full-grown stag. In certain parts of the 
Highlands they have lately increased in numbers, 
and perhaps as a consequence, their ordinary food 
not being so plentiful, have become bolder. 
Only last year I was stalking in a forest where 
a few days earlier a stalker had witnessed a most 
unusual incident. The following is his account 
of what he saw : 
" A gentleman and 1 were out stalking on the 
25th of September, and while the gentleman was 
having lunch, I went off about 200 yards to have 
a spy. I got a stag lying at the foot of a rock. 
