KEEPERS AND KEEPERING 44& 



To see the hooded crow with small beady eye hunt a hillside, drop 

 down beside a pair of Grouse whom he suspects of having a nest, to watch his 

 casual walk round as if merely on a tour of inspection, the fierceness with which 

 he darts at and drives away the pair from their eggs or young, returning again 

 and again until the last of these has been taken, leaves no thought of pity even 

 in the most tender-hearted. The hooded crow usually nests in the birch woods 

 or plantations at the edge of a moor. It is fortunately easy to kill the pair 

 in the nesting season, and they can be trapped with bait at all times of the 

 year. In the nesting season there is no bait like an egg, and even if the 

 "hoodie" does not fall a victim to this bait, it may prove the death of a 

 stoat, a rook, or some other equally objectionable scourge. 



Rooks are nearly as destructive as hoodies or carrion crows on some moors, 



for the supply is inexhaustible, and the nests being at a distance 



1 1 T ' ^ -Rooks, 



cannot as a rule be destroyed. 



Jackdaws are often a serious pest upon a moor, and should be kept in 



check with a firm hand. Their numbers can best be reduced by 



•' Jackdaws. 



harrying them in the breeding season. If the old birds are kept 

 ofi" their nests in frosty weather the eggs will become addled. 



An interesting example of the damage caused by jackdaws is furnished 

 by a correspondent of the Committee who rents a moor in Scotland. Before 

 he took the moor the average bag was about sixty brace, and the ground 

 was overrun with vermin, more especially with jackdaws, which nested in the 

 rabbit holes on the hillside. The tenant at once commenced to wage war 

 upon the jackdaws, and offered a sum of one half-penny an egg to any boys 

 who robbed the nests ; in each of the last three seasons he has taken over 

 one thousand jackdaws' eggs — one boy alone collecting upwards of five hundred ; 

 at the end of the third season the bag had increased to over two hundred 

 brace of Grouse, while a large breeding stock was left. The jackdaws' egg's 

 were found very useful for feeding young pheasants. 



Ravens are already so persecuted by the shepherds that they hardly count, 

 thousfh there are still a fair number to be found in the remote 



° Ravens. 



fastnesses of the Scottish deer forests. 



The golden eagle is too noble a bird to rank in the list of vermin. He 



occasionally kills his Grouse on the wing, but feeds for choice on hares, Golden 



with an occasional deer - calf or lamb for a change of diet. In ^"s'*^' 



former days, when eagles existed in large numbers in the Highlands, their 

 VOL. I. 2 F 



