The golden-eagle is not nearly so
great a foe to the farmer as to the sportsman ; for although a pair, having
young ones, will occasionally pounce upon very young and unprotected lambs,
and continue their depredations until scared away, the more usual prey
consists of hares, rabbits, and grouse-a fact sufficiently proved by the
feathers and bones found in their eyries. A pair used to build every year in
Balquhidder, another in Glen-Ogle, and a third in Glenartney. The shepherds
seldom molested the old ones ; but by means of ladders, at considerable
risk, took the young and sold them. One of these brought to Callander, not
long ago, when scarcely full-fledged, would seize a live cat thrown to it
for food, and, bearing it away with the greatest ease, tear it to pieces,
the cat unable to offer any resistance, and
uttering the most horrid yells. From
the havoc they made among the game, especially when they had young, the
keepers in the neighbourhood have been very diligent of late years in
searching out the eyries, and trapping the old birds ; so that now, in this
part of Perthshire, there is not one for three nests that there were
formerly.
I recollect, some time ago, an eyrie
in Glen-Luss, where a pair hatched yearly; but since the female was shot, no
others have haunted the place. The shooting of this eagle was a service of
great danger, and the man who undertook it a most hardy and determined
fellow. The cliff was nearly perpendicular, and the only way of access was
over the top, where a single false step would have sent him headlong into
the gulf below. After creeping down a considerable way, he saw the eagle
sitting on her eggs, a long shot off; but his gun was loaded with swanshot,
so, taking a deliberate aim, he fired; she gave one shrill scream, extended
her wings, and died on her nest. His greatest difficulty now was, how to
avail himself of his success. He was not, however, the man to be balked :
so, at the most imminent risk, he managed to get to the eyrie, tumbled the
eagle over the cliff, and pocketed the two eggs. They were set under a hen
but did not hatch. Had they been left, the male would, probably, have
brought them out, as he has been often known to do in similar cases. I
afterwards broke one of the shells, and was quite astonished at its
thickness.
A fair shot may sometimes be got at
the male when there are young ones in the nest, as he will often swoop down
in their defence: at any other time, he is the most shy and wild of birds. I
only know of one instance to the contrary, and that was in the depth of a
very severe winter, when the creature was rendered desperate by hunger. The
gamekeeper of my late father was shooting wild-fowl, and having killed one,
sent his retriever to fetch it out of the water. The dog was in the act of
doing so, when an eagle stooped down, and seizing him, endeavoured to carry
off the duck: it was only by shouting with all his might that the keeper
could alarm the eagle so far as to make it fly a little clear of the dog,
when he shot it with his second barrel. The
scuffle took
place only twenty yards from where he stood, and he told me that he thought
the eagle would certainly have drowned his dog.
When two eagles are in pursuit of a
hare, they show great tact-it is exactly as if two well-matched greyhounds
were turning a hare-as one rises, the other descends, until poor puss is
tired out : when one of them succeeds in catching her, it fixes a claw in
her back, and holds by the ground with the other, striking all the time with
its beak. I have several times seen eagles coursed in the same way by
carrion-crows and ravens, whose territories they had invaded : the eagle
generally seems to have enough to do in keeping clear of his sable foes, and
every now and then gives a loud whistle or scream. If the eagle is at all
alarmed when in pursuit of his prey, he instantly bears it off alive. Where
alpine hares are plentiful, it is no unfrequent occurrence, when the
sportsman starts one, for an eagle to pounce down and carry it off,
struggling, with the greatest ease : in this case, he always allows the hare
to run a long way out of shot before he strikes, and is apt to miss
altogether. When no enemy is near, he generally adopts the more sure way of
tiring out his game.
The colour of the golden-eagle differs
very much: some are so dark as almost to justify the name of "the black
eagle," which they are often called in the Highlands-in others, the golden
tint is very bright; and many are of an even muddy-brown. I do not think
that the age of the bird has anything to do with this, as I have seen young
and old equally variable. The sure mark of a young one is the degree of
white on the tail: the first year the upper half is pure, which gradually
becomes less so by streaks of brown-about the third or fourth year no white
is to be seen.
THE SEA EAGLE.
I have not had an opportunity of
noticing the habits of the sea-eagle, never having been for any time in the
neighbourhood of its haunts. All my information regarding them is derived
from watching one or two tame ones which I met with in Ireland, where they
are more numerous than in Scotland, whose mountains are the grand resort of
the golden-eagle. The prey of both seems pretty much alike, except that the
sea-eagle is fonder of dead carcases, which may in part account for its
partiality to the sea-shore. Those I allude to devoured crows, jackdaws,
livers, fish, or almost any carrion that was thrown to them. Their eyries
are mostly in the precipitous cliffs on the coast.
The sea-eagle is rather larger than
the golden, and of a lighter brown. The bill, which is longer and broader,
but not so hooked as the other, is of a dull yellowish white. The whole of
the tail-feathers of the young ones are brown, when they gradually change to
white, which is complete about the fourth year-the very reverse of the
golden-eagle. The tail is also shorter, and the legs are not feathered to
the toes, like the other ; but quite enough to show that the bird was not
intended to subsist by fishing, like the osprey, whose legs are bare to the
thighs, which have only a thin covering of short feathers.
THE OSPREY
The osprey, or water-eagle, frequents
many of the Highland lochs ; a pair had their eyrie for many years on the
top of a ruin, in a small island on Loch Lomond. I am sorry to say I was the
means of their leaving that haunt, which they had occupied for generations.
It was their custom, when a boat
approached the island, to come out and meet it, always keeping at a most
respectful distance, flying round in very wide circles until the boat left
the place, when, having escorted it a considerable way, they would return
and settle on the ruin. Aware of their habit, I went, when a very young
sportsman, with a gamekeeper, and having concealed myself behind the stump
of an old tree, desired him to pull away the boat. The ospreys, after
following him the usual distance, returned, and gradually narrowing their
circles, the female, at last, came within fair distance-I fired, and shot
her. Not content with this, the gamekeeper and I ascended the ruin, and
finding nothing in the nest but a large seatrout, half-eaten, we set it in a
trap, and returning, after two or three hours, found the male caught by the
legs. They were a beautiful pair : the female, as in most birds of prey,
being considerably the largest-the woodcut is a most correct likeness. The
eggs of these ospreys had been regularly taken every year, and yet they
never forsook their eyrie. It was a beautiful sight to see them sail into
our bay on a calm summer night, and flying round it several times, swoop
down upon a good-sized pike, and bear it away as if it had been a minnow.
I have been told, but cannot vouch for
the truth of it, that they have another method of taking their prey in warm
weather, when fish bask near the shore. They fix one claw in a weed or bush,
and strike the other into the fish ; but I never saw them attempt any other
mode of " leistering " than that I have mentioned : when they see a fish,
they immediately settle in the air-lower their flight, and settle again-then
strike down like a dart. They always seize prey with their claws, the outer
toes of which turn round a considerable way, which gives them a larger and
firmer grasp. Owls have also this power, to enable them with greater
certainty to secure their almost equally agile victims; while the fern-owl
has the toe turned round like a parrot, to assist it in the difficult task
of catching insects in the air. But if this were the case with the others,
although it might be an advantage in the first instance, it would very
considerably weaken their hold when prey was struck.
I remember seeing another pair of
ospreys on Loch Menteith, that had their eyrie on the gnarled branch of an
old tree. They became so accustomed to the man who lets boats there, that
the female never even left her nest when he landed on the island, unless a
stranger was with him. Once, when he returned home after a short absence, he
saw one of them sitting on the tree, making a kind of wailing cry:
suspecting all was not right, he rowed to the island, and found the female
was missing, and the nest harried. They have never hatched there since : the
male has been frequently seen, but he has never found another mate. When
they had young, they did not confine their depredations to Loch Menteith,
but used to go, in quest of prey, to the other lochs in the neighbourhood ;
and, in the evening, would fly down the glen, carrying a fish a foot long in
their claws.
The nest of the osprey is lined with
coarse waterplants and grasses: the outside fenced with thick boughs, some
of them four inches round, and three feet and a-half long: proof enough of
the strength of its legs and wings. The eggs are as large as a hen's, with
reddish-brown spots. The osprey is about the size of the herring-gull ; the
breast nearly white, spotted with brown; back and wings dull brown ; the
thighs very muscular ; legs and claws, which are of bluish flesh colour,
equally so.