106 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



shooting near the telegraph lines, we have found Grouse 

 either killed or severely injured by the wires, and to-day 

 I shot a Grouse in a horribly mangled state at Laing's Hill, 

 several miles away from the line." The above are sufficient 

 illustrations of what I have stated, though it would be easy 

 to adduce hundreds of similar instances. Surely, in these days 

 of ultra-humanitarianism, of R.S.P.C.A. associations, and of 

 " Wild Bird Protection Acts " — when a maudlin sentimen- 

 tality comforts itself by fining a poor man for shooting a wild 

 goose in March, or for overworking his horse, on which per- 

 haps depends his daily bread — surely, in these days, the 

 wanton cruelty and useless waste above described (carried on 

 for a national profit) should not be permitted. But then 

 these cruelties are not seen; they only occur on the remote 

 hills, where no one witnesses them save shepherds. 



On October 8, 1879, I came across what is now a very rare 

 bird on the Northumberland moors, a Hen-harrier, an adult 

 male, pale blue. He had struck down a Grouse, obviously 

 on the wing, and was busy eating it in the bottom of a deep 

 black ravine or chasm in the peat, into which the Grouse 

 had fallen, when m}' setter pointed the pair from the opposite 

 side. The Harrier rose from almost under my feet with a 

 loud scream, his yellow claws dangling below him ; but in 

 my extreme anxiety not to blow him to fragments (I was 

 shooting with a No. 10 gun, full choke), I let him well away, 

 when " skirling " about in half a gale of wind, I clean missed 

 him. The head of the Grouse had been completely severed 

 from its body, and lay some 10 ft. or 12 ft. lower down the 

 ravine. It is worth mentioning, that in beating up-wind to 

 where we found the Harrier (which was on one of the highest 

 ridges of the fell), the Grouse had been "lying "well — a 

 most unusual occurrence at that season — and my brother 

 and I had just killed four or five brace over dogs. For this 

 I think it is probable we had to thank the Harrier, as, 

 from the position of the dead Grouse and its head and other 

 circumstances, he appeared to have hunted the ground up- 

 wind, just in advance of us. 



On one other occasion only have I personally observed the 

 Hen-harrier among the solitudes of the Borders, this was on 



