Eagle's eggs

Eagle's eggs

Lough Derg--Henry Newland--Fishing--Foraging

"It so happened, that the Parson had marked the very clump in which the bird had pitched, and had taken the bearings accurately. Guiding his course by these, he scrambled over huge, loose, mossy stones, so large, so irregular, and so unconnected with each other, that it seemed as if the whole island was a mere stone-heap which the giants had left..."

Henry Newland, 1804-1860

Newland, Henry, The Erne, Its Legends and Its Fly-Fishing, pp. 224-25

Chapman and Hall, London

1851

Digitised by Internet Archive, originally from University of California

Public domain

xiv, 395 p. plates. 20 cm

English

Fishing memoirs

DD_0184

54.622709, -7.908866

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t4qj7g05s

"It so happened, that the Parson had marked the very clump in which the bird had pitched, and had taken the bearings accurately. Guiding his course by these, he scrambled over huge, loose, mossy stones, so large, so irregular, and so unconnected with each other, that it seemed as if the whole island was a mere stone-heap which the giants had left. Scrambling on all -fours over one of them, he with some difficulty raised his head beyond its edge, and found himself within arm's length, not only of the nest, but of the bird, which rose suddenly with a shrill, startled cry, and, knocking off his hat in her passage, dashed off, clanging and screaming, to the westward, discovering, in a rude nest of dry sticks, four dirty white eggs, about the size and shape of a bantam's, only rounder and plumper.

The result of a council of war held upon them was, that they should be subjected to the water-test, — it being a fact well known among birds'-nesters, that an egg that has been sat upon, even for a day, will swim, turning one of its ends uppermost, whereas, the fresh egg sinks to the bottom, and lies on its side. The eggs, in this instance, did not stand the test ; and as they were unfit for preservation, they were carefully replaced in the nest, and the eagle was permitted to hatch them out, — the Parson taking, as spolia optima, one of them, which happened to be addled."

Monograph