Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/30

 was the golden, appeared above his hounds as they came to fault after a good chase, on the ascent to Devis, the highest of the range. As they came on the scent again, and were at full cry, the eagle for a short time kept above them, but at length advanced, and carried off the hare when at the distance of three or four hundred yards before the hounds.*

In the autumn of 1836, the intelligent gamekeeper at Tolly- more Park (Down), the seat of the Earl of Eoden, informed me that during the preceding nine years of his residence there, he had never met with the golden eagle among the neighbouring moun- tains of Mourne. In the summer of 1837, one of these birds was killed in that part of the country.

Mr. W. M'Calla of Roundstone, Connemara (Galway), made in substance the following communication to me in 1841. Golden eagles are not uncommon in that district, t but seldom seek their prey in the neighbourhood of villages. Their eyries are generally among inaccessible cliffs in the range of mountains called the Twelve Pins ; but, in one instance, a pair bred in the level part of

When grouse-shooting on the elevated and romantic mountains attached to Me- garnie castle in Perthshire, late in Octoher, 1829, my friend and I were surprised on one occasion by seeing a great number of grouse (Tetrao Scoticus) flying for a con- siderable distance so low as merely to overtop the heath. Passing us a short way off, they disappeared over an adjoining knoll. Thinking that they had alighted there, we hurried forward with our dogs, and not finding them, we on looking above per- ceived a golden eagle sailing along in the direction they had flown. This bird was presumed to have caused their unwonted flight, and its slow mode of progression gave us further hope that the grouse might still be near. Expecting them to lie well, in consequence of the eagle's being above, we carefully " beat " the ground for about a mOe around, but not a grouse was found ; which, added to the eagle's flight being right onward, left little doubt that they had continued flying for a great distance in the unusual manner described.

t O'Flaherty, in his West or H-Iar Connanght, written in 1684, and published by the Irish Archæological Society in 1846, remarks at p. 12: — "Here is a kind of black eagle, which kills the deere by grappling him with his claw, and forcing hini to run headlong into precipices." The golden eagle being a bold bird, as weD as darker coloured than the sea eagle, is, I presume, meant. The deer alluded to must be the stag, or red deer (Cervus elephas). The following note, from Martin's West- ern Islands, Isle of Lingay, p. 70, is appended by the editor to the quotation given: — "The black eagle fixes his talons between the deer's horns, and beats its wings con- stantly about its eyes, which puts the deer to run continually, till it falls into a ditch, or over a precipice, where it dies, and so becomes a prey to this cunning hunter. There are, at the same time, several other eagles of this kind, which flye on both sides of the deer, which frights it extremely, and contributes much to its more sudden destruction."