I Met With Two Thieves While Duck-Shooting This Morning - The One An
Eagle, And The Other A Native.
The beautiful white-throated fish-eagle
may generally be seen perched upon a bough overhanging the stream, ready
for any prey that may offer.
This morning I shot two ducks right and
left as they flew down the course of the river - -one fell dead in the
water, but the other, badly hit, fluttered along the surface for some
distance, and was immediately chased and seized by a fish-eagle which,
quite reckless of the gun, had been watching the sport from a high tree,
and evinced a desire to share the results. My men, not to be done out of
their breakfast, gave chase, shouting and yelling to frighten the eagle,
and one of them having a gun loaded with buckshot, fired, and the
whirr-r of the charge induced the eagle to drop the duck, which was
triumphantly seized by the man.
The other thief was a native. I fired a long shot at a drake; the bird
flew a considerable distance and towered, falling about a quarter of a
mile distant. A Latooka was hoeing close to where it fell, and we
distinctly saw him pick up the bird and run to a bush, in which he hid
it: upon our arrival he continued his work as though nothing had
happened, and denied all knowledge of it: he was accordingly led by the
ear to the bush, where we found the duck carefully secreted.
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