Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/135

Rh old eagles will not suffer their young to remain near them after they have become able to provide for themselves : and we may here remark, that it is probably for the same reason, that so large a proportion of the different birds of prey which occur on our coasts in the autumn, are immature specimens.

This is the only species of eagle which belongs to Norfolk ; for al- though the golden eagle has been more than once mentioned by orni- thologists as having been taken in the county, we have been unable to obtain satisfactory evidence of its occurrence, and are disposed to be- lieve that specimens of H. albicilla in various stages of plumage have been mistaken for golden eagles.

It has been observed that white-tailed eagles, when they appear on the coast, are constantly followed and mobbed by flocks of gulls, and that when they come inland they are similarly accompanied and per- secuted by rooks.

A young male bird of this species was some years since procured off Winterton in the following manner. Some boys having thrown out a line and hook into the sea, baited with a herring, for the purpose of catching a gull, the bait was spied and pounced upon by the eagle ; and the hook becoming fixed in the inside of his foot, he was found by the boys upon their return to examine their line, floating on the sur- face of the water. They immediately went off in a boat and completed their capture without much difficulty. This bird was subsequently kept in confinement for some years, but accidentally escaping, was shot a few days afterwards by a gamekeeper in the neighbourhood.

Osprey, Pandion haliæetus. A few specimens occur nearly every year, most frequently in autumn, but occasionally in the spring and win- ter months. The habit of the osprey is to fix upon some large piece of water, and if not disturbed, to confine its fishing almost exclu- sively to that particular locality, so long as the supply to be obtained from it continues to be tolerably abundant. By far the greater number of those which are taken in this county are in immature plumage.

The species next in order, the Gyr Falcon, Falco gyrfalco, has been included by some in the list of Norfolk birds, but we think too hastily, as the only specimen known to have been procured in the county, showed evident marks of having escaped from a falconer.

Peregrine Falcon, Falco peregrinus. Of not unfrequent occurence, especially during the autumn. A pair of these birds formerly bred in the cliffs on the sea-coast at Hunstanton, but we believe have now ceased to do so ; and we learn from the Rev. Richard Lubbock's