British Deer and their Horns 
5 6 
Come we now to the golden eagle — a bird sedulously encouraged and protected by 
the owners of deer forests, malgre the bad character it bears as an inveterate foe of the 
deer tribe. This grand creature, without which no forest can nowadays be called complete, 
certainly takes considerable toll from among the young calves, and, when he gets the 
chance, will frequently kill them when they are well grown. As a rule, however, the 
hinds are such excellent mothers and guardians that, after their young are able to follow 
them, it is only by cutting them off from their protectors that the bird is successful in 
his forays. A golden eagle will sometimes wait for hours together on a bunch of hinds 
with their calves in the hope of getting a calf separated from its mother, but rarely, if 
ever, I fancy, will it attack the mother or any calf within her reach, having far too whole¬ 
some a dread of the fire and accuracy with which she can use her forelegs. At such 
times—when danger threatens—the courage of the hinds and the sagacity they display 
in defence of their young are quite astonishing. I was told by the head stalkers on two 
different forests, who assured me they had seen what they described, that a hind noticing 
an eagle on the look-out from a neighbouring rock drove her calf off to another mother 
and left it in her care, while she herself pluckily charged straight up to the eagle and 
attempted to strike it. 
But perhaps some one may suggest that my informants were (in the learned words of 
a Yankee spiritualist) “ docti arcum intendere longum .” Not a bit of it. I knew the men 
well enough to rely implicitly on their statements, and, moreover, my own experience goes 
far to confirm them. In July 1894? with the kind permission of Lord Breadalbane, Mr. 
Steel and I were making studies of deer in the forest of Black Mount, and sitting one 
day on the ridge of a hill above Inveroran, in view of some hinds with calves on the 
opposite hill, I suddenly spied an eagle coming towards them, and evidently bent on food. 
As the bird (an old female, judging from her size and the colour of her tail feathers) 
approached the deer we distinctly saw the latter bunch together in a little group, with 
their calves by their sides. The great bird kept sailing round and round close above them, 
and once made a distinct stoop as if to try and scare them, but without success. Presently 
it swept down close to the ground some thirty yards away from the deer, apparently with 
the intention of alighting, when one of the hinds made a rush towards the bird, which, 
however, again swung upwards and continued soaring around as before. Altogether the 
eagle must have remained some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour over the deer whilst 
we were watching, till, apparently concluding that the game was not worth the candle, 
she sailed away farther up the corrie, where we saw her later on beating the hill-side 
for blue hares. 
As to full-grown hinds without “encumbrances” (as children are lovingly called 
in Christian advertisements), so unusual is it for eagles to molest them that, as a rule, they 
regard the bird with absolute indifference, hardly raising their heads as they lie and chew 
the cud while an eagle passes over within a few feet of them. But the rule has its 
exceptions. This year (1896) Mr. George Henderson tells me he was stalking one day 
in Cannacroc, when he saw an eagle pass just over the heads of a big herd that was lying. 
The animals took no notice whatever, but after going some distance the great bird returned 
towards them, when the whole herd rose instantaneously and packed together, evidently 
