Birp NOTEs. 129. 
as during the last few years a very successful attempt had been 
made at protecting this bird—successful in respect that nesting 
was brought off and hatching took place. The Duchess of 
Bedford had taken a great interest in the golden eagle, and this 
species had returned to Cairnsmore as a breeding place after an 
absence of more than sixty years. The nest was protected day 
and night for six weeks, a man never being absent all that time. 
That of itself meant considerable expense, and they hoped that 
the results would be satisfactory. Yet when all this care was 
being taken, they had one of these eagles being shot by a mis- 
guided keeper on Criffel, and he hoped they would join him in 
expressing their disapprobation of such a thing taking place. 
A good deal of talk had taken place among agriculturists during 
the last ten or twelve years in reference to the killing of rooks, 
and what, he thought, he might call a rather artificial agitation 
had been carried on for the destruction of the birds in the sup- 
posed interest of agriculturists. For his part he had taken a 
life-long interest in rooks and their ways, and he never saw why 
agriculturists, of all people under the sun, should wish to 
destroy them. No doubt they did harm to farm crops, but that 
could be got over with the greatest of ease. For ten months of 
the year the rook was the only friend the farmer had in the bird 
direction, so that it was rather a queer thing to hear farmers 
being constantly asked to shoot down the rooks. This so-called 
demand—an artificial demand—for the destruction of rooks was 
teally in the interests of the game preservers. He did not say a 
single word against game preserving ; that was a different matter 
altogether; but the gamekeepers were a body who could look 
after these things quite well, and destroy such rooks as they 
wanted to, without asking the farmers to do it, and try to make 
them believe that it was in the farmers’ interest it should be 
done. The whole thing had arisen from a curious change that 
took place in the habits of the rooks 28 or 30 years ago. Much 
time had been spent in investigating why the rooks should have 
developed the carnivorous habit of the carrion crow, but it was 
a fact that this change had taken place. This had led to rooks 
destroying game eggs, and even rabbits and hares in the young 
stage. The game preservers ought to look after that and allow 
farmers to preserve them for the purpose of looking after grubs 
and other insect pests which would, in the absence of rooks, 
