Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/29

 his talons. A trap, baited once with a rabbit, and again with a hare, was set for this eagle, and on each of these animals he pounced, but finding that they would not rise with him, — in con- sequence of their being held down by the trap, — he immediately left them. Mr. Adams, hearing that this eagle had killed several of a neighbour's ducks, lost little time in obtaining one for his trap, and with this tempting bait secured him. Upon the fourth eagle the keeper came by chance when out shooting. This bird flew overhead, and was fired at from about twenty yards distance; the shot from the first barrel bereft him of many feathers, and by the contents of the second he was severely wounded, but able to fly off. Some men who were near, having told the keeper that they had seen an eagle mobbed by magpies, he was eventually dis- covered by the great number of these birds collected about the place on the heath where he lay dead, with outstretched wings. Only one sea eagle was obtained within the same period at Glen- arm Park. On the 14th of Oct., 1835, I saw an adult specimen of the golden eagle, which was trapped the day before at Claggan (Antrim). It was accompanied by two others, but the attempt to capture them was unsuccessful.

By the late Dr. M'Donnell and another friend, both of whom well recollected the circumstance, I have been assured that the plan adopted by the Kerry peasant for supporting his family in a season of scarcity,* was successfully resorted to about thirty years ago at Glenariff, in the county of Antrim. One of a pair of eaglets taken from a nest there was so placed, that its parents during the summer supplied it with rabbits and hares in such abundance, that its owner obtained, in addition to what the bird required, a suffici- ency of animal food for himself and his family. The old birds did not alight with their prey, but circling for some time above the eaglet, apparently calculating the distance, they dropped the food within the limited reach of its chain.

A sporting friend, who was eye-witness to the fact, assures me that when out hunting among the Belfast mountains many years ago, an eagle, which from the darkness of its plumage he concluded


 * Smith's Kerry, p. 97.