Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1907 — EAGLE DROPS CHILD INTO TREE. [ARTICLE]

EAGLE DROPS CHILD INTO TREE.

Ita Taloua Became Fixed In the Dreaa of Little One. One of the pair of giant bald eagles that nest In a - dead chestnut tree on Wnukhaw mountain, near Caldwell, N. J., carried 8-year-old Gladys Vreelaad to the top of a tall hemlock tree Saturday morning and dropped her Into Its branches, according to the story told by her father, John Milton Vreeland, a fanner, says the New York World. The child weighs forty pounds and, according to the father’s story, the great blrdwasbarely abTe to maintain l{» -flight under the weight Its carrying off of the girl was more than half Involuntary, Its talons having become caught In her clothing when -she attempted to save a hen from the eagle. Vreeland. sakl the bird had been soaring over Uls chicken run for more than an hour. He saw it swoop downward Into a clump of currant bushes. In the buslies the eagle pounced upon a ben, but could not rise with Ita prey because of tbe thick foliage. The flapping of the great wings attracted the child to the spot and when she saw tbs bm

held by the eagle she seized a stick and began to belabor the marauder. The eagle sprung on her, sinking Its talons Into her dress, the sharp claws tearing her flesti. Her cries brought her father running from a field near by. At sight of the man the bird attempted to rise, dragging the child, struggling, after it. Yreeland believes that the bird’s talons became entangled In the girl’s dress and that It could not free Itself. The two eagles have been familiar to’ the neighborhood since 1903, but never had they been known to attack human beings before. The great bird rose slowly and laboriously, its wings beating the air wildly and the child screaming with terror. Vreeland sprang forward, but before he got within reach the bird had lifted Itself and Its precious burden above him and was slowly rising higher and higher. The Child continued to struggle and the bird seemed trying to free Itself. It had reached the top of a tall hevv lock tree when .the struggles of the girl rent her dress at the left shoulder, for several seconds she hung with her entire weight in the grasp of one talon of the eagle, which continued flapping the air wildly and trying to make way.Tben the dress at the right shoulder gave way and Gladys fell through the branches of the tree to the ground, where fortunately a pile of hay broke her fall, so that she was little Ihjured. As the child dropped the eagle shot through the air toward the mountain at express train speed.