6 THE MONTHLY
thews, almost as thick as a man's wrist, and mea-
suring, in the stuffed state, as near as may be,
three feet high. Her son is of inferior height and
strength, both from his sex and the captivity he has
endured; for I need hardly remark, that female
birds of prey are larger than the males--an anomaly
certainly in the history of the species, but at the
same time, a wise provision of Nature, seeing that
the mother has most to do in catering for her cal-
low young. The live eagle at Cairnsmuir retains
all his instinct unimpaired. When I saw him last
year, he was in tolerable feather, hopping about and
facing his visitors with the greatest boldness; and
like all the tribe, he seems to have an eye that
never cowers--at least from fear. Though his
food is rarely stinted, he likes best to kill his own
meat, and if a domesticated fowl happen to stray
within his range, its doom is fixed and its fate
sealed. Instantly it is severed into a number of
fragments, with a dexterity, no carver could equal,
though the head and brains are always eaten first,
as affording the most delicious morsel. The prac-
tice followed by some of skinning hares and rabbits
before surrendering them to birds of prey, is as un-
wise as it is unnecessary. In his natural state, the
eagle has a contempt for the subdivisions of labour;
the game laws, too, he sets at defiance; far and
wide, without leave asked or given, he acts as his
own huntsman, butcher, or cook; even when con-
fined, he takes great delight in skimming for himself;
and as he uniformly swallows a portion of the fur,
this fact of itself is decisive as to the proper mode
of treatment, and proves that down of some kind
