of Scotland, had a tame eagle, which the keeper one day, very injudiciously, thought proper to lash with a horsewhip for some petty fault. About a week afterwards, the man chanced to stoop within reach of its chain; when the enraged bird, recollecting the late insult, flew in his face so furiously and violently, that he was much wounded, but happily, driven so far back by the blow, as to be out of all further danger. The family alarmed by the screams of the eagle, found the offender lying at some distance in a fearful plight, while the bird was pacing and crying in a manner equally threatening and majestic. It was even dreaded that the eagle might break loose in the violence of its rage, which it did just as they withdrew, and escaped.

An eagle, which excited great interest, was some years ago in the Garden of Plants, at Paris. It was taken in the forest of Fontainbleau, in a fox-trap, the spring of which broke its claws, which rendered a painful operation necessary; but, though the cure was tedious, the eagle displayed great patience. Its head only was at liberty during the operation, but it did not oppose the dressing of the wound, from which several splinters were taken; nor did it attempt to disturb the operations which the fracture required. Swathed in a napkin, and laid on one side, the eagle passed the whole night on

straw without the least motion; and the next day, when all the bandages were unwrapped, lodged itself on a screen, where it remained twelve hours, without once resting on its unsound foot. Its windows were open all the time, but it made no attempt to escape. It refused all nourishment until the thirteenth day of its captivity, when it tried its appetite on a rabbit, seizing it with its uninjured claw, and killing it with a stroke of its beak, between the head and the first vertebra of the neck; and after having devoured it, the eagle resumed its usual place on the screen, from whence it stirred no more until the twenty-first day after the accident. At that time it began to try the wounded limb, and without in the least deranging the ligature by which it was bound, regained the use of it by moderate exercise. Many a parent who has an invalid child, would have far less trouble, in the exercise of kind and watchful attention, were the object of so much care as truly patient as this eagle. The sufferer too, would enjoy advantages which the wayward and irritable never know.

THE WHITE-TAILED EAGLE.

THE white-tailed eagle is much more common, as a species, than the golden eagle, and it may frequently be seen on some parts of our coast. Dwelling in the high rocks and cliffs that overhang the ocean, it looks out eagerly for prey: when hungry, it will seize either fowl or fish; it will feed also on seals and venison, and has sometimes been killed in forests and deer-parks. It lays two eggs. Its young are at first covered with a soiled white down, having very large beaks and claws, and are driven away by the parent birds as soon as they are able to provide for themselves. The white-tailed eagle frequents Denmark, Sweden, and the west coast of Norway; proceeding as far north from thence as Iceland and Greenland. Returning from high northern latitudes as the season advances, this species is much more numerous in winter than in summer.

A pair of these birds had long inhabited a lofty tree on the coast of Ireland, and, perhaps from age, seized anything they could find, to the great annoyance of the

neighbouring peasants. Many persons wished to stop their plunder, but like not a few in other circumstances, they were not remarkable for promptitude; and besides, everybody respected the eagles. The gardener of one gentleman, however, had orders to load his musket, and to fire on the female bird the first time she ventured to intrude among the goslings, or to pursue some unfortunate chicken. But she was a magnificent bird-far larger than her husband-and Peter's heart failed him. "Look at her!" he said, as she sailed in the distance; "look at her, master! I remember that ould lass ever since I was the height of a raspberry plant; and I couldn't find it in my heart to hurt a feather of her wing, the craythur! What signifies a dozen of goslings to such a bird as that? Won't there be plenty o' geese of all sorts when she's gone? But my father before me used to say, 'Peter,' says he, 'mark my words, them 'ill be the last o' the rale ancient Irish eagles that 'ill ever settle in the barony; for they 've a mortal hatred to new fashions:' but as to killing her, I'd as soon think o' killing the priest !"

Vain was it, then, to expect relief from Peter; but as goslings were again destroyed, and still more, as the rapacious bird took a fancy to a beautiful pea-hen that was brooding over her in a retired copse, it was eggs

determined that, as the killing of the birds seemed out of the question, the tree should be cut down, and then it was supposed that the eagles would quit the neighbourhood altogether. This expectation proved to be correct. The eagles returned at night, but the tree, on the topmost and blighted boughs of which their nest had so long rested, was now lying on the ground. What could then be done? They made some circles about it, uttering shrill and plaintive cries, and then they departed to find a new abode; it was thought, in one of the islet bays, with which that part of the coast abounds.

That children have been carried away by eagles appears to be well attested. A white-tailed eagle built its nest on Tintholn, in the Feroe islands, and one day darted down on a child which was lying at a little distance from its mother, and bore it away. The rock where the nest was constructed was so steep towards the summit, that the most courageous and experienced birdcatchers had never ventured to climb it; but a mother's love was not to be thus baffled: the agonised parent encountered the task, and reached the top, but unhappily too late; her little one was there, but it was dead, and partly devoured.

Another case of the same kind had happily a different