24 The Mice Plague. [Sess. 



are harmless to game I confidently dispute. In regard to 

 tawny owls, I have repeatedly stated in the public prints that 

 they are not only destructive to game, but to pigeons and to 

 all singing-birds. In the spruce woods on the Ladykirk estate 

 in Berwickshire, I have seen young pigeons carried to the 

 owlets, and at a bedroom window at night have heard the 

 noise made by small birds being lifted from their roosting- 

 place among ivy by tawny owls. I have never seen rats 

 brought to the owlets, but I have it on the authority of those 

 on whose word I can rely that young rats are also included 

 in their bill of fare. 



In the month of January last, Mr Cameron, head game- 

 keeper to His Grace the Duke of Argyll, found a number of 

 pheasants killed, and partly devoured, in the pheasantry, which 

 consisted of a few acres of scrub, fenced with net wire ten feet 

 high. The hen birds were pinioned, but cocks could fly in 

 and out at will. Thinking rats were the depredators, he re- 

 sorted to every available expedient to destroy them. After a 

 fall of snow one morning, he found a pheasant had been killed 

 and partly eaten during the night. Observing where the 

 scuffle had taken place among the newly-fallen snow, he dis- 

 covered that the pheasant had been killed by a bird, and at 

 once suspected owls. He therefore set a trap at the remains 

 of the pheasant, and also had a post put in the ground, on the 

 top of which he placed a pole trap. Early in the evening a 

 couple of tawny owls were secured, one in each trap. That 

 owls are destructive to all kinds of small birds and to young 

 game is well known, but I must confess I was not prepared 

 to believe that they would attack and kill adult pheasants. 

 Were it not that the high character and veracity of Mr 

 Cameron are unimpeachable, I should have hesitated to accept 

 such a statement. 



Owls being plentiful at The Inch, I have frequently removed 

 the young ones from the nest and placed them in a box, for 

 the express purpose of discovering the character of the food 

 brought by the parent birds. A popular notion prevails that 

 owls cannot see in daylight, and that they hunt for their prey 

 only in the dark. While this may be their normal habit at 

 other seasons, it is very different when they have to provide 

 food for their young. On one occasion, an hour after I had 



