BIRDS OF PREY. 15 
mentioned combine to prevent their extermination, or 
ere this, in England at least, the whole family would 
have been extinct. 
As forcibly illustrating this point, I copy from an 
Inverness Courier, of May, 1856, the following account ; 
it is headed, “ Extraordinary Destruction of Vermin,” 
and extraordinary indeed it is. The list has not been 
made by a naturalist, and there is consequently some 
confusion as to the precise species meant; but there is 
nevertheless the plain fact, that on one estate, in four 
years and a half, 818 individuals belonging to the order 
under consideration were destroyed by the keepers. 
But here is the account :— 
“The Marquis of Ailsa has for some years encouraged 
his gamekeepers in the destruction of vermin by paying 
so much per head for those brought in. Every keeper 
and assistant-keeper has a record of all the vermin 
killed by him, and he receives payment every three 
months accordingly, besides the regular and liberal 
wages to which they are entitled for their services. All 
kinds of vermin were thus brought low, even to the 
jackdaw and common rat, which, we are informed, 
caused great destruction to the eggs of pheasants and 
partridges. The rat has become very common there, 
and is found to burrow in rabbits’ holes to such an 
extent, that in ferreting rabbits, it sometimes happens 
that a rat and a rabbit are shot right and left. Whole 
broods of young pheasants and partridges have been 
found dead, and partly eaten near rats’ holes, and some- 
times even young hares and rabbits. The owl, generally 
supposed to be harmless, has been shot with young game 
in its talons ; and hedgehogs have been found with large 
accumulations of eggshells in their burrows, or in the 
