Morning journal and courier., 1884-11-03
A FIGHT WITH AN EAGLE.
Lewis TvflIianass Experience With the
 Bird in the Mountains.

STOCKPORT, Penn, Oct 30.-Lewis Will Hams, who lives in an isolated spot in the Preston Mountains, few miles from this place, having set trap to capture tox which he had reason to believe was carrying away his chickens, went out yesterday morn ing to look at it, and found it gone. The trap had been chained to small stake in the ground, and this was pulled up and was missing with the trap and chain. Supposing that the fox had been caught in the trap and had escaped with it, Williams hunted about fin the woods for some trace of it, but could find none As he was returning home he heard sudden and great commotion among flock of crows in piece of woods about quarter of mile or so from his house. The crows were cawing furiously, and were cir cling around above the tree-tops in one par ticular spot, and occasionally darted about
 through the trees. Williams walked over to-
 ward the woods, and as he approached the crows increased the hubbub. When he ar rived within gunshot they withdrew to more distant part of the woods, but kept up
 their noise Williams had just entered the
 edge of the woods when he heard the rattling
 of a chain, and simultaneously very large bird strutted out from behind a tree, drag
 ging the missing trap chain and stake. The
 jaws of the trap were fastened to one leg ot the bird, which was a bald eagle of the lar
 gest size. The eagle flew from the ground
 and was rising with difficulty toward the top
 of tall, dead tree, when Williams fired Ut
 it. The charge took effect in one of the eagles wings and it fell to the ground. Thinking to capture the eagle alive, Williams approached it, but, in spite of its crippled
 wing and the burden of the trap on its leg,
 the bird flew at him and attacked him with
 such fury that he turned and fled from the woods. Hurrying back home, Williams, without saying anything to others, procured stout rope and large feed bag. On his way back to the woods he noticed that the crows w: ich had attracted his attention to the spot in the first place were lowering over the place where he had left the eagle, and from their peculiar cries and frantic actions he inferred that something unusual had oc- cured during his absence. The crows, knowing by the wonderful instinct they pos sess that the eagle was wounded, and hating as they do all large birds, had swooped down on the eagle and attacked it in its crippled condition. This attack had been disastrous to the crows, for when Williams again reached the spot three lay dead near the enraged eagle and several others were dragging them selves away out of its reach, uttering the sharp, guttural cry which they only utter when wounded or in trouble.
 The eagle no sooner saw Williams ap- preaching again than it rushed at him with all the force at it's command, hampered and crippled as it was, and forced the fighting at
 once. Williams had made Q moose at one end of the rope he carried, and when the eagle flew at him he waited until it al-
 most upon him and then quickly threw the
 moose over the birds head and it slipped
 down around it's wings. Williams drow the
 moose tight and fastened the other end of the
 rope to tree. The eagle was now shorn of the great.strength in it's wings, but it pulled
 the rope taut in it's effort to get at Its enemy.
 As it stood thus straining at the rope Will Hams succeeded in slipping the bag down over its head. He then clasped the bird around the body. Although now blinded and pinioned and doubly crippled, the eagle was still unconquered. AS Williams stood with his arms around the great body of the bird endeavoring to secure the mouth of the bag around it's legs, the eagle suddenly sprang against him and striking him in the stomach with one free talon, with one fierce downward stroke ripped his clothing from him and tore the skin from the flesh in a long strip clear to the waist. Williams quickly released the bird, and made haste to reach his house, supposinG-that he was ter ribly injured. Two men who were thrashing buckwheat for him were then informed of the presence of the eagle in the woods, and they went to the spot and succeeded in over towering it. It was brought to Williams and tied to post in the barn, the trap being removed from its leg. The eagle measures eight feet from tip to tip of it's wings, and stands nearly four feet high.
 These birds still nest in the wild and rocky elevations in this region, where it is barely possible for human beings to gain access. They frequently visit the sheep pastures of the farm neighborhoods and the poultry yards. In defending her chickens against one of the bold marauders one day last sum- mer, not far from the Williams farm. Mrs
 Jane Urban was compelled to fight it for nearly an hour, during which time it tore her clothing from her and lacerated her flesh ter ribly with it's beak and talons. She finally killed it with Q fence rail.