Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/51

 food, they preferred rats to fish.* When not very hungry, they, after tasting the blackbird (Turdus merula), showed a dislike to it, but that this did not arise from colour, was evident from black chickens being always as acceptable as others ; gray crows (Corvus cornix) were also disliked, though magpies (Corvus pica) were fa- vourite food.f On one occasion during rainy weather, they re- fused to eat for a few days, though at the same time they never retired to the shelter of their sheds, as buzzards (Buteo vulgaris) and peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) did, which were kept along with them. One of these eagles, (a male,) killed four pet birds, his constant companions in the same enclosure : — these were a white owl, a kite, a buzzard, and a peregrine falcon, that when he was tied, J either alighted near him, or were carelessly fastened within his reach. The first intimation my friend had of the owl's death, was its legs (all else had been devoured) lying beside the post, where a few hours before he had seen their owner alive and well. The eagle had partly plucked the falcon prepara- tory to eating it, just as his master appeared in view, when he in- stantly sprang from the body of his victim, and further evinced the consciousness of his misdeed by allowing it to be carried off,

Fish, however, are in no little request with sea eagles. A correspondent has known a young bird to eat twenty gurnards (Trigla gurnardus) in a day. An eagle obtained in the Highlands of Scotland by Major Matthews (of Springvale, co. Down), and taken about with his regiment, had the audacity to drive away one of the soldier's wives engaged in washing a dozen of herrings in the river near Fort George, and made a meal of them all.

f The peregrine falcon also shows distaste and partiality to birds nearly allied ; thus the blackbird and ring-ouzel (Turdus torquatus) are disliked, while the song thrush (21 ?nusicus) is much relished, and, though it will kill and eat the landrail {Crejc pratensis) and wagtails (Motacilla Yarrelii) when hungry, it is averse to them, and has in some instances been observed to eject them front the stomach. My friend, the Baron De Selys Lougchamps, a very distinguished naturalist, has remarked to me with reference to Belgium, where these birds are much used at table, that the song thrush is excellent eating, and the redwing (T. iliacus) is also good ; but that the fieldfare (T. pilaris) is not so, and the blackbird is decidedly bad : — the falcons, the eagles, and the Baron, are therefore all of the same opinion. According to M. Duval-Jouve, blackbirds fatten and acquire an excellent flavour from feeding on the fruit of the myrtle, in Provence. (Zoologist, Oct. 1845, p. 1119.) In the north of Ireland, indeed, these birds are by many persons considered very good, which may be owing to their feeding much on the nutritious mollusca found about the hedges and covers they frequent.

% When the golden eagle, sea eagle, peregrine falcon, kite, buzzard, and kestrel, all of which Mr. Langtry had at the same time, were at liberty, they never molested each other.