Lastly, as I have already said in the pages just mentioned where I have fully discussed the matter, the eagle on rare occasions swoops down at a terrific pace on his prey in the air, striking it to the ground but not clutching it or, to use the falconer’s phrase, binding on it. The eagle has a great partiality for hares, cats, young fox cubs, and young lambs. I remember James Macintosh, head stalker at Loch Rosque, telling me that on two occasions whilst waiting at a fox den he had shot an eagle. He added that, whilst the old foxes are away, the cubs, when they get hungry, sometimes make such a noise that they can be heard at a considerable distance, and that he believed this attracts the eagles, particularly if their eyrie in which they are rearing their young happens to be in the vicinity. He went on to say that he thought this accounted for his sometimes finding fox dens containing only one or two cubs instead of the usual number of three to seven. There is no doubt that eagles sometimes attack deer calves, fixing their talons in their victim’s neck or back and striking the calf with their wings. They frequently hunt in pairs, and have been seen to drive the calf over a precipice. On rare occasions eagles have been known to attack a full-grown stag. In certain parts of the Highlands they have lately increased in numbers, and perhaps as a consequence, their ordinary food not being so plentiful, have become bolder. Only last year I was stalking in a forest where a few days earlier a stalker had witnessed a most unusual incident. The following is his account of what he saw: “A gentleman and I were out stalking on the 25th of September, and while the gentleman was having lunch, I went off about 200 yards to have a spy. I got a stag lying at the foot of a rock. While I had the glass on him, an eagle suddenly swooped down and attacked him. The stag went headlong into a bog, but managed to get up. I then ran back for the gentleman thinking we would have a shot, but by the time we got back the stag and eagle were over the sky-line and the eagle still following while going over the sky-line, but after that we don’t know what happened, as both eagle and stag went out of sight.” Donald Matheson, who has had a lifelong experience in the forest and has only recently retired after having been for many years stalker at Glen Shieldaig to Mr. C. J. Murray of Loch Carron, told me that on one occasion, but on one occasion only, he saw an eagle attack an adult stag.