Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     By the “Senator,” which arrived on Sunday, Mr. Wolcott of this city brought two young black eagles for Woodward’s Gardens. He says that this species of eagle is rare almost to extinction. They were secured by him on a very elevated portion of the Sespe range of mountains, about 70 miles north from Santa Barbara, where he put them on the boat.

     Having previously observed the parent eagles sailing down the valley, he claimed a tree twenty feet above the ground before a branch was reached, and then ten feet more to the nest, some of the sticks composing which were as thick as a man’s wrist. With some difficulty he secured the young birds, then about three weeks old and the size of large chickens. He secceeded in decamping with them before the return of one of the old birds, which came back shortly afterward with a young lamb in its claws. Though the old bird saw Mr. Wolcott, it did not see the young eagles he had, or there would have been a fight. Returning to the house at which he was staying, the birds were secured in a pen, and kept three weeks. They are now about six weeks old, about two feet in height, and can dispose of a jackrabbit or more at a meal without indigestion. A few days ago a coyote visited the house and destroyed all the chickens. The eagles were then placed in the chicken-pen. The next morning the coyote returned to get more chickens, and under the impression that these eagles would suit him, he got hold of one of them. The eagle also got hold of him by inserting his talons in his nose, but was unable to drag him into the pen, the coyote being equally powerless to drag the eagle out. The coyote then concluded he didn’t want any more eagle, and expressed himself to that effect loudly, but to late, inasmuch as Mr. Wolcott’s attention was drawn to the spot, and he shot the animal. He says that the full-grown eagles of this very rare species are eight feet in spread of wing, four feet in height and scarcely any man or animal could avoid being stunned if attacked by them in their usual manner.-San Francisco Post.