issue. A native of the isle of Skye, named Neil, was left, when an infant, by his mother in the field, "not far," says Martin, "from the houses on the north side of Loch Portrie," when an eagle came and carried him away in its talons, as far as the south side of the loch, and there laid him on the ground. Some people tending sheep, hearing the infant cry, immediately ran to his rescue, found him providentially untouched by the eagle, and bore him home to his mother. "He is still living," says Martin, in 1716, "in that parish, and by reason of this accident is distinguished among his neighbours by the surname of Eagle.”

The following is also a remarkable tale. A peasant, with his wife and children, had taken up his summer quarters in a small cabin or shed, near Briançon, and was feeding his flocks among the mountain herbage which overhangs the Durance. The eldest child was an idiot, about eight years of age; the second, five years old, suffered from another calamity, that of dumbness; and the youngest was an infant. One morning the latter was left in the charge of his brothers, and all had rambled to some distance from the cabin before they were missed. At length, the mother, who went forth to seek the wanderers, discovered the two elder, but the infant was gone.

The idiot appeared to be full of delight, and the dumb child greatly alarmed and terrified; but in vain did the parent, in her anguish, endeavour to ascertain what had befallen her lost babe. Again and again did she observe the movements of her two children: the dumb boy appeared almost bereft of his senses, while the idiot danced about, laughed, and seemed by his gesticulations to imitate the action of one who had caught up something of which he was fond, and hugged it to his heart; but no solution of the mystery was given by the antics of the one, or the fright of the other. One slight consolation, however, arose-it was in the thought that some acquaintance had fallen in with the children, and taken away the infant; but the day and night wore away without any tidings of its state.

On the morrow the parents renewed their search, when, as an eagle was seen to fly over their heads, the anties of the idiot were resumed, and the dumb boy clung to his father, and shrieked aloud with anguish and terror. Now the fearful fact burst on their minds, that the infant had been carried off by some bird of prey, and that the half-witted child was delighted at the removal of one of whom he was jealous and so it proved. On the morning of their loss, an Alpine hunter had been watching near an eagle's nest, in the hope of shoot

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ing the bird on her return to the eyrie, and, at length, he beheld her advancing towards the rock behind which he was concealed. On a nearer approach, he observed, to his indescribable horror, an infant in her grasp, and heard with anguish its bitter cries. In a moment he resolved to fire at the eagle the instant she alighted, and rather to kill the child than to leave it for a prey to the ravenous bird. That instant came: with a silent prayer and a steady aim he poised his rifle, and, most providentially, the ball pierced the head or heart of the eagle, and immediately this hunter,

"Whose joy was in the wilderness, to breathe

The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,"

found a far higher delight fill his bosom in snatching the child from the eagle's nest, and bearing it securely away. It was wounded by the talons of the bird, but not mortally; and in less than twenty-four hours after it was first missed, he had the high satisfaction of restoring it to its mother's arms.

Notwithstanding the extreme boldness of the whitetailed eagle, it does not dare to contend with a fox or a dog in its natural wild state. Singularly enough, an eagle and a fox were, on one occasion, observed to be regaling themselves on the carcase of a goat that had fallen down a precipice in the Highlands of Scotland.

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The latter frequently compelled the former to desist, and retreat a little; but it was not so much alarmed as to forbid its return; and occasionally it threw itself into bold and picturesque attitudes of defence, erecting all its feathers, and spreading to the full the wings and the tail.

THE PEREGRINE FALCON.

THIS bird, more numerous in Scotland than England, builds its nest on high rocks: its name, Peregrine, is given from its migratory habits on various parts of the coast. In the Isle of Wight these falcons breed annually near the Needles, and destroy many of the puffins and razor-bills in the neighbourhood. In the vicinity of St. Abb's Head, an eyrie has been observed as long established: from hence a gentleman usually obtained his cast of hawks, for each of which he gave a guinea to those who encountered the danger of scaling the precipice. It is said, that numbers of the peregrine falcon reside temporarily on Westminster Abbey, and make sad havoc among the tame pigeons in the neighbourhood.

This bird is associated with one of the old English sports. There seems to have been a passion for hawking among all the nations that owned a Scandinavian origin; and perhaps none exceeded our forefathers in its intensity. For centuries it was satirized and denounced