ately runs a few yards, and then squats flat on the ground amongst the dead leaves, or whatever the ground is covered with. The parent soon returns to the rest of her brood, and if the danger still threatens her, she lifts up and carries away another young bird in the same manner. I saw this take place on the 18th May; the young were then larger than, or fully as large as, a snipe."

We are happy to say our author is on the side of the small birds in the controversy with the farmer and gardener. He defends the rook too, and even makes a plea for the wood-pigeon now increasing so alarmingly. The hooded crow he gives up as a mischievous and voracious robber. Speaking of the system of vermin-trapping, St. John remarks :-

"One advantage certainly results from birds of prey being killed off: blackbirds, thrushes, and numerous other beautiful little birds, increase in proportion as their enemies are destroyed. In several districts where, a few years ago, these birds were very rare, they are now abundant. The ring-ousel, too, is one of the birds who has benefited by this destruction of its enemies. There are some other birds, such as the wheat-ear and tit-lark, who are seldom killed by a hawk, but whose nests and young are the constant prey of weasels and other ground-vermin. These have also good reason to thank the trapper. Wood-pigeons, whose eggs were formerly taken by the crows and magpies in great numbers, and whose young served to feed many kinds of hawks, now increase yearly, and begin to be a subject of great complaint amongst farmers; and yet the wood-pigeon during a great part of the year feeds on the seeds of many weeds and plants useless or mischievous."

No country affords better common wild-fowl shooting than that where St. John took his sport; and it gives some game of a nobler and rarer sort. He thus describes making a bag in a winter's evening; the scene is Loch-lee, between Nairn and Brodie :

"Just before sunset I take up my position in the midst of two or three furze bushes, within easy shot of where a small stream runs into one of the lakes, keeping the water constantly open. Having given my retriever the biscuit which I always carry for him on these cold days, I light my pipe (the great comfort of the patient wild-fowl shooter) and look out towards the bay for the mallards. The bay is nearly half a mile off; but I can see the ducks between me and the sky almost as soon as they leave it. At first a solitary pair or two come, quietly and swiftly, probably making their way to some favourite spring farther inland. With the help of a cartridge, I bring down a brace from a great height, as they pass over; sometimes, tumbling on the ice of the loch behind me, they are nearly split in two; sometimes, when winged, they fall in the rushy stream, and give the retriever no small trouble and cold before he gets them; however, he always suc

Wild-goose Stalking.

ceeds, and having brought the bird and received his reward of shipbiscuit, he lies down again, but with eyes and ears all intent on what is going on. The sea-gull or heron may pass, and he takes no notice of them; but the moment that a wild-duck's quack, or the whistle of his wings is heard, the dog's ears erect themselves, and he watches my face with a look of most inquiring eagerness. I hear the wild-swans trumpeting on the sea, but know that they are not very likely to come where I am placed. Presently, a brace of teal pitch suddenly and unexpectedly within a few yards of me, having flitted in from behind. I kill the drake, but cannot get a shot at the duck, as she flies low, and the smoke, hanging heavily in the calm evening, prevents my seeing her. But all at once the mallards begin to fly from the sea, and, for half an hour or less, I have to load and fire as fast as I can, as they fly over. I prefer shooting them on the wing, for if I let them pitch in the water, my dog has a swim every time I kill one, and gets half dead with ice and frozen snow.

"The mallards generally fly in from the sea rapidly, and at no great height; but it requires some practice to kill them, as their flight is much quicker than it appears, and they require a hard blow to kill them dead. If wounded only they fly off, and, dropping at some distance, I can seldom get them that night, owing to the approaching darkness. Sometimes my retriever marks the direction of a wounded duck and gets it, but generally they are lost, and serve only to feed the foxes, who seem to hunt regularly for maimed birds round the lakes. Having killed ten mallards and a teal, it becomes too dark to shoot any more, although I still hear their wings as they fly over my head. Besides which, I have nearly three miles to walk; and my keeper, who has also killed two or three, had, before we commenced duck-shooting, sundry animals to carry, the produce of my day's wanderings. We have to walk home too, there being no road near these lakes. So, after I have refilled my pipe, and the old fellow has recharged his nose with a spoonful of snuff, we shoulder our game and set off. Eight or ten fat mallards are no slight load over a rough track in the dark, so we keep the sands as far as possible, listening to the different cries of the sandpipers, curlews, and numerous kinds of wild-fowl who feed on the shallows and sandbanks during the night time. Occasionally, in the moonlight, we catch a glimpse of the mallards as they rise from some little stream or ditch which runs into the bay, or we see a rabbit hurrying up at our approach from the seaweed which he had been nibbling. In this way, with very little trouble, and often much nearer home, I can generally reckon on getting some few brace of wild-ducks in the winter; shifting my place of ambush according to the weather, the wind, etc., changes in which cause the birds to take to different feeding-places."

It requires more trouble to approach the wary wild-goose:"To stalk a flock of wild-geese when feeding is as difficult as to stalk a stag, if not more so. From the nature of the ground which they feed on, and their unwearied vigilance, unless you have concealed yourself beforehand within reach of their feeding-place, it is nearly

impossible to approach them. . . . One of my boys was out for a walk with a gentleman who was staying with me, to whom he was acting as cicerone or guide to the lochs, as I was unable for some reason to go out with him myself. The little boy took the telescope, which their attendant carried, and having looked along the shores of the lakes and through all the likely parts of the ground, which he knew as well as I did, from having frequently ridden that way to join me, he shut up the glass with the exclamation, characteristic of a deerstalker-There they are!' My friend's question of course was, 'Who are there?' And on being told it was a flock of geese, he at once understood why he had been led on from point to point under different excuses; for he had good-naturedly followed passively wherever he was told to go. Having been shown the geese, he sat down with the glass and allowed the child to attempt the task of stalking them, but without having the slightest expectation of his success. He watched the boy for some time till he became invisible, having apparently sunk into the ground amongst the rushes and long grass. His attention was next attracted by seeing the geese suddenly rise, and almost immediately perceiving that one fell to the ground. The next instant he heard the double report of the boy's gun. Another goose left the flock and fell at some distance, but it was unnoticed by him and the servant, as their attention was taken up by the young sportsman, who went dashing through water and swamp to seize the first bird that fell. It was nearly as big as himself, and he brought it up to them in triumph, a successful right and left at wild geese being rather an era in the sporting adventures of a boy ten years old."

Ascending in the scale, we have our author stalking the wild

swan:

"March 6.-I have tried two or three days to get at the largest wild swan on Lochlee, but without success; my fruitless attempts I do not mark down-horas non numero nisi serenas. However, to-day--a fine sunny day-as I passed at some distance from the lake where the swans were feeding, they rose and alighted on the largest of the pieces of water; seeing this, and that they were not inclined to take to the sea iminediately, I sent the boy who was with me round the lake where they were, while I made my preparations for receiving them at their feeding lake, supposing that they would return to it if allowed to rest for an hour or so, and then quietly moved; even if they did not alight, I knew that I was pretty sure of their line of flight to the sea, and they seldom flew very high. I waded across part of the loch to an island, where I determined to await them. and set to work to make up a hiding place of long heather, etc. This done, I loaded my gun with large shot and cartridges, and established myself behind my barricade. With my glass I saw the boy and retriever go round towards them; the appearance of the swans floating quietly on the water was most picturesque, their white forms being clearly defined on the dark blue water, and their shadows almost as distinct as themselves. They all held their heads erect, watching the boy, who, as he had been instructed,

walked to and fro opposite the birds and sufficiently near to put them up, but without appearing to be in pursuit of them. I hoped by this means to drive them over to the loch where I was concealed without frightening them so much as to make them take off to the sea. They seemed unwilling to rise, and little afraid of the boy, whom they appeared to look at with curiosity rather than alarm, and I struck a light in order to smoke the pipe of patience and resignation, for, fine as the day was for March, my situation in a damp island and wet through above my knees began to be uncomfortable.

"The latakia was not half puffed away when I heard the wellknown warning cry of the swans, and immediately looking round, saw them just flapping along the water preparatory to their flight. Cocking my gun, and holding the pipe tighter in my teeth, I waited anxiously to see in what direction they would fly. At first they made straight eastward, as if off for the Bay of Findhorn, but after a short flight in that direction they turned, and I saw them coming three and three together, as usual, straight towards where I was concealed. In a few minutes they were exactly over my head, at a good height, but still within shot, flying with their long necks stretched straight out and their black feet tucked up, but plainly visible as they passed over me. I stood up and took a deliberate aim at the largest of them as he ascended higher into the air at my unexpected appearance. The first barrel seemed to have little effect on him, though I distinctly heard the shot rattle on his strong quills; the second, however, which was loaded with larger shot, was more effective: whilst his two companions continued crying to each other, he remained silent. However, he kept up with the rest, and they all went off towards the bay. In the meantime three smaller swans came within twenty yards of me, or less, trumpeting and calling loudly.

"With the glass I watched the bird I had fired at, as I knew he was hard hit. He still, however, held his way with the rest, and they were gradually getting indistinct when I saw him suddenly rise straight up into the air, his snowy plumage shining as it caught the rays of the sun. I saw him a second time rise perpendicularly to a great height; he then suddenly turned backwards in the air and tumbled headlong to the ground perfectly dead. He was above half a mile or more from me, in the direction of the bay, and the whole intervening ground was covered with sandhills and bent, so that I could not see the exact spot where he fell, whether on the dry ground or in the sea. However, I marked the direction as well as I could, and set off after him. Large as he was, I had a long and for some time a fruitless search amongst the broken sandhills. I scanned the bay with the glass in vain, and then came back towards the lochs. At last I hit upon him by finding a quantity of blood on the sand, and following the drops, which had fallen almost in a stream: in fact the track of blood, though falling from such a height, was as conspicuous as that of a wounded hare on snow. At length I came on the swan, who was lying stretched out on the sand, and a noble bird he was. I shouldered him as well as his great length would enable me to do, and carried him back to

where the boy was waiting for me. I found him no slight burden; he weighed above 27 lbs.; the breadth between his wings 8 feet, and his length 5 feet. Of all the swans I ever killed he was by far the largest, the usual weight being from 15 to 18 lbs."

"No birds offer so striking and beautiful a sight as a numerous flock of large swans on wing, while their musical cries sound more like the notes produced by some wild-toned musical instrument than the voice of a bird. While they remain with us, they frequent and feed in shallow pieces of water, like Lochlee, Loch Spynie, etc., where the water is of so small a depth that in many places they can reach the bottom with their long necks, and pluck up the water-grasses on which they feed. While employed in tearing up these plants, the swans are generally surrounded by a number of smaller water-fowl, such as widgeon and teal, who snatch at and carry off the pieces detached by their more powerful companions."

We make room for one more extract, of an otter-hunt of a singular kind. It is during a snow-storm on the borders of Ross and Sutherland

:

"We walked on, and soon came across the tracks of two or three otters, where they had been going in and out of the water on their way up stream, after fishing in the deep pools where the two waters met near the house. These pools are favourite resting-places for salmon and sea-trout, and therefore are sure to be frequented by the

otters.

66

Half

Opposite to a strip of birch-trees one of the largest otters seemed to have left the river, and to have made for a well-known cairn of stones, where I had before found both marten-cat and otter. way up the brae he had entered a kind of cleft or hole, made by a small stream of water, which at this spot worked itself out of the depth of the earth. 'He'll no stop in this,' said Donald; 'there's a vent twenty yards above, and I ken weel that he'll no stop till he is in the dry cairn, forty yards higher up the brae.' Nor was the old man far wrong, for we found where the otter had squeezed himself up to the surface of the ground again, leaving a small round hole in the snow. We carefully stopped up both entrances to this covered way, and then Donald went on with the dog to dislodge him from the cairn, having first given me the strongest injunctions to 'stand quite privately' a few yards from the hole which we had just stopped up.

The dog at first seemed little inclined to leave me, but presently understanding the service upon which he was to be employed, he went off with Donald with right good will, putting his nose every now and then into the tracks of the otter in the snow, as if to ascertain how long it was since his enemy had been there.

"They soon arrived at the cairn, which was of no great extent, and not composed of very heavy stones. After walking round it carefully, to see whether there were any tracks farther on, Donald sent on the dog, who almost immediately began to bark and scratch at a part of the cairn. Donald was soon with him, and employed in