13 
instances almost depopulates an entire district. There can be no 
doubt that this unwarrantable destruction of Hawks and Buzzards 
affects adversely the condition of the birds with which our Scottish 
mountains are stocked—the number of wounded birds alone which 
survive the unprecedented annual slaughter through which the Red 
Grouse is now obliged to pass being an argument ‘sufficient to show 
that such merciful agents are wauted to prevent the spread of en- 
feebled life. In other sections of the animal kingdom epidemics 
similar to that affecting Grouse have been noticed ; and, so far as my 
own observations have enabled me to judge, I am disposed to regard 
these periodical outbreaks of disease as more or less associated with 
a derangement of Nature’s laws. In almost every case where undue 
protection is given to certain animals by the mgorous destruction of 
others, man’s interference is followed, sooner or later, by evils of a 
graver nature than those which the protective measures were in- 
tended to cure; and until some more rational plan is tried for the 
restoration of the Red Grouse to its original vigour, no one can say 
what may be the final issue of the somewhat anomalous position in 
which, as a species, the bird is now undoubtedly placed.” 
T can fully indorse the general remarks of Mr. Gray respecting 
the inconvenience arising from the undue protection afforded to cer- 
tain species by the rigorous destruction of others. Strange as it may 
appear, the keeper who supposes that he is zealously guarding the 
interests of his employer by ruthlessly destroying all vermin “from 
the estate is in some instances committing an error. As an ex- 
ample in point, and one not mentioned by ‘the writer above quoted, 
I may remark upon the destruction of the White Owl, which, injur- 
ing the game to a very small extent, confers much compensatory 
benefit in the destruction of the mice, rats, and weasels upon which 
it feeds. Our pretty Kestrel, too, often suffers an ignominious fate 
without a reasonable excuse, its food generally consisting of moles, 
mice, lizards, frogs, and the larger insects. Considerable latitude 
must, however, be accorded to the keeper, who, with all his care 
and anxiety, is frequently nonplused by the continued loss of 
his young game, and that coming from a quarter little to be sus- 
pected. Some of the more intelligent of his class have, by constant 
watching, detected the Brown Owl habitually haunting the vicinity 
of his pens, and seizing, as occasion offered, two or three of his chicks. 
The Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), too, stealthily threading its way 
through the grass, is no less to be dreaded, its presence among the 
coops not resulting solely in the abstraction of the scattered grain, 
but frequently in the death of a chick from a blow of its pointed 
bill, a considerable portion of the victim being afterwards eaten. No 
one who has lived much on the Thames, or other localities frequented 
by this bird, can have failed to be struck by the fury and boldness 
with which it will attack a rat, a duck, or even so large a bird as a 
swan, if it approaches its nest. 
‘«« At the beginning of July,” says H. J. Partridge, Esq., of Hock- 
ham Hall, near Thetford, in Norfolk, ‘‘ the keeper having lost several 
Pheasants about three weeks old from a copse, and having set traps 
