Shepherd’s Daily Dinner

Eagles sometimes built where not even a rope-dancer could get at them, a sad case for shepherds, who were accused of concealing the whereabouts of their nests when in accessible places. It was said that they tethered the eaglets to the nest long after they could fly, because until the young birds left the nest the parents never
ceased to bring quantities of all sorts of game to feed them, quite half of which was said to go into the shepherds’ larder. A shepherd admitted to me that he once took a salmon quite fresh out of a white-tailed eagle’s nest. Fawns, hares, lambs and grouse were
brought in heaps to the nest for months, an agreeable variety at the shepherd’s daily dinner of porridge and potatoes and milk.

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