The Country Gciitlanaiis Magazine 



415 



DAMAGE BY GAME AND RABBITS. 



A WRITER in the Aberdeen Free Press 

 gives the following account of a tour 

 in some parts of Aberdeenshire in the summer 

 of 187 1. The locality chosen, he says, was 

 one from which complaints of injury by game 

 and rabbits have never been heard of in 

 public, and would be admitted perhaps to be 

 a medium case. The ground traversed 

 would represent a valuation of ;^3ooo to 

 ;^4ooo. The shooting was let to a tenant, 

 but otherwise the farmers were laid under no 

 particular restrictions. 



Over the district there are a good many 

 plantations that afford excellent cover for 

 rabbits, with here and there opener spaces of 

 broom, whins, or heather that exactly suit 

 the habits of the hare. The character of the 

 soil — light and open — is also favourable for 

 the formation of rabbit burrows. Every- 

 where there is evidence of skill and industry 

 applied in the cultivation of a soil of only 

 medium productiveness, and a good deal of 

 land has within a limited time been reclaimed 

 from the natural waste. 



Our observation extended over about a 

 dozen farms, of those which from their situa- 

 tion seemed to afford samples of the severest 

 damage, and also of the medium damage 

 whether by rabbits or hares. One tenant, 

 whose chief plague was rabbits, estimated 

 the direct loss by destruction among his tur- 

 nips during winter as averaging ^t per acre 

 over the whole crop ; bits would be badly 

 eaten, of course, nearest the wood, but ^15 

 over 15 acres was a fair estimate, and that 

 was apart from the annoyance and disap- 

 pointment of the thing. Another tenant 

 who suffered much from rabbits in the 

 greater part of his fields on a farm of 

 about 160 acres, estimated his loss for three 

 years at ^150, taking into view turnips, grass, 

 and corn crop, or £^,0 a-year. A neighbour, 

 in reply to our inquiry, expressed his belief 

 in the substantial accuracy of this estimate, 

 and it was incidentally confirmed during our 



excursion in a perfectly satisfactory way. 

 Happening to meet the previous tenant of 

 the same farm, we asked from him an esti- 

 mate of his yearly loss about the close of his 

 lease. This he put at £(>o ; but he added 

 that the circumstances then were a little 

 exceptional. The previous game tenant's 

 lease was also drawing towards a close, and 

 he had been preserving for some time more 

 rigorously than usual preparatory to a grand 

 slaughtering off before he should quit. 

 Damage to grass or grain crops is not so 

 easily estimated as in the case of turnips. 

 One tenant thought £2 an acre would repre- 

 sent the loss on some of his most exposed 

 fields of oats v/hen the vermin was about the 

 maximum. He had looked pretty closely at 

 the damage to his turnips without arriving at 

 a definite estimate ; but could give an illus- 

 tration that would speak for itself. He had 

 occasion in early winter to leave a patch of 

 turnips, that would have amounted to five or 

 six loads as they stood, unpulled at a par- 

 ticular part of the field. Snow and frost set 

 in, and the patch was left thus for several 

 weeks. At the end of that time not a single 

 turnip remained to pull ! Simply " cauppies " 

 indicating where they had been ! 



Under the existing state of things, the 

 tenants have, naturally enough, made certain 

 efforts to protect themselves. As a matter 

 of course, they and the game tenants have not 

 concurred in opinion as to what constitutes 

 excess of vermin, and this circumstance has 

 led to scenes that have their amusing side. 

 For example, a tenant who can use his gun 

 with effect sets out to shoot rabbits on his 

 farm when he is dogged, step by step, by a 

 gamekeeper, who sticks closely to him for the 

 express purpose of destroying his chance of 

 getting a shot. Another time the farmer is 

 wiser, and when he sets out, plants watchers 

 at each of two points that command good 

 part of the farm ; and warned by them from 

 time to time by pre-arranged signals of the 



