Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/36

 tary, at my request, kindly supplied the following account of them in July, 1845.

"The great eagle-cage in the Garden of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland is 36 feet long, 16 broad, and 16 high, and was erected at the expense of Sir Philip Crampton, Bart., as a place for the exercise of the large Carnivora, and consequently called a Deambulatorium. It failed in its original object. A tigress placed in it quailed, and seemed most anxious to regain her small den ; a lioness and a leopard had to be forced into it. Sometime afterwards I had seven Eagles placed in it as an experiment, and they seemed to agree perfectly. To these, additions have been made for the last four years, until the number now amounts to 17: viz., 3 Golden, 2 White-headed, and 12 Sea Eagles; for some time a Choka Eagle was of the number, but it has since been removed to a smaller cage. The eagles live together, if not in harmony, at least in a sort of mutual respect towards each other. I know of only one quarrel, and at this I happened to be present. A sea eagle pounced on a golden eagle ; the latter threw itself on its back, when the former with its talons seized it by the legs until it seemed to faint in agony, while the assailant gave forth its loudest barking cry in triumph. I had some difficulty in beating tins bird off the other with a pole ; it was removed from the cage, and shortly afterwards accidentally killed. On another occasion, a golden eagle was found drowned in the bath, or large trough in which the eagles delight to roll ; it was supposed by the keeper to have been forced under water by one of the sea eagles, but more probably it got cramped, as the birds seem often to carry their bathing to excess. It is a remarkable fact, that a sea eagle but one year old, seemed to be generally acknowledged as the superior of the whole. This bird seized the first piece of food thrown into the cage as its acknowledged right ; but should any other eagle happen to get possession of it, the food was instantly given up on the approach of the young one, which, when full grown, was about the largest of the flock. The bathing of the eagles alluded to is remarkable. On observing that these birds, which in mena- geries are generally kept without water, exhibited a great desire