72 I{|i;n Nii'I'KS '•■|!nM I'LsKnALi;. 



liofdw " from ;is many •' |ila<iues " as did (he Ko-yptians of old. 1 

 do not mean to enter liere into a description of all these plag-ues, 

 but I merely mention them so as to bring- under your notice that 

 two of them — the vole and caterpillar plagues — broug-ht in their 

 train, not what I would call other plagues, but " invasions " of 

 birds, anil which proved to be benelicial instead of hurtful. 



During- the Vole Plague of 1876 rough-legg-ed buzzards 

 came to it, from whence no one could explain, though Norway 

 was suggested as the country of their advent. My sheplierd, as 

 1 said, counted seven of these birds in one company, hawking 

 about the hill-sides, and he had ocular proof that they preyed on 

 voles. A single bird of this species is a rare sight, as previously 

 mentioned, and if many came from a foreign country how were they 

 attracted from such a distance ? As I do not k(3ep a permanent 

 gamekeeper a great many owls, of both the brown and long- 

 eared species, as well as kestrels, breed in my woods annually. 

 The kestrels, in the absence of more congenial nesting places, 

 build on the spruce fir trees, of wliich the plantations principally 

 ctmsist. When the plague broke out, which it did on the liigher 

 hills at the head of the valley, these birds forsook my woods and 

 went to the " moused " ground ; not an owl or a kestrel was to 

 be seen for some nioTiths. 



srroiri'-EAiiED owls. 



When tlie army of voles, on their march southwards, arrived 

 at Uastle O'er I was pleased to welcome back my " vermin," 

 accompanied by a great number of short-eared owls, which had 

 been attracted to the plague. My friend Mr Reattie told me he 

 had seen fourteen owls under an overhanging bank of the river, 

 and that the sight of so many sitting in a row blinking in the 

 davlight was a comical one. He also counted 42 of the short- 

 eared species on the wing at one time. This large increase of 

 short-eared owls was a strange feature of the plague. Letters 

 appeared in the public prints noticing it, and several writers said 

 that up till then these owls were merely winter visitants, and that 

 they had never been known to have previously nested in this 

 country ; but my experience is entirely opposed to this belief. I 

 have known of these birds nesting on the neighbouring- hills so 

 far back as 18R4. There was never a season up to 187y, when I 

 had more occasion to travel over moorland than now, that I did 



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