The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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WATCHING AN EAGLE KILL A DEER
By S. C. Turnbo
It seems somewhat strange that an eagle is able to kill a deer, but it is true, and according to the accounts of hunters deer were attacked and killed by eagles numbers of times. The cases were not rare.
Mr. John D. Row who has sent me several stories of the pioneer days rends
the following in a letter written at Pruitt, Boone County, Ark. "I
have just interviewed Mr. John W. Roberts of Burlington Post Office and
he tells me the following account as related to him by James Roland, who
was an eye witness to an eagle killing a deer. Mr. Roland came to Carroll
County, Ark., from Tennessee., in the year 1832. Soon after this time he
was hunting on Long Creek near where Carrollton now is, and hearing a "swishing"
sound some distance in advance he cautiously approached through the thicket
until he come to an opening. Here he beheld the sight of an eagle killing
a yearling deer. The big bird made a swoop from the limb of a tree and struck
the deer with its talons, which knocked it down. The eagle then passed onto
a limb of another tree on the other side of the deer. As the deer raised
to its feet, the eagle again swooped down upon the deer and knocked it down
again. When it lit on the limb from where he first saw it dart. He watched
the attack till in this manner the deer was unable to rise, then he shot
the eagle and finished killing the deer with a stone and carried it home
for the use of himself and family."
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