CORVUS CORONE. 453 



the middle of a ditch about a quarter of a mile f i om the old tir 

 park. The nest was only five feet from the ground. I could see 

 into it from the heather. In this case the crow did not fly off 

 (to reveal it) till we were within ten yards, then flew away with 

 a loud " era — a" out of sight. There were only two young 

 gorbits in the nest. He said he knew it when it had only two 

 eggs. I think I had harried their nest in April on one of the 

 large tir trees, -for the young should have been ripe or flown by 

 May 29th. A water hen was sitting on deep-sitten eggs 

 amongst the heather in the same ditch, within a few yards of 

 the willow which held the carrion crow's young ones. The nest 

 was compactly built with whin roots and heather stalks, fine 

 birch twigs, and dry grass woven together, and finely lined with 

 wool, feathers, and fur — but most wool. It was 17 inches over 

 all, by 9 in. deep — the cup 8 by 5 inches deep. On April 27th, 

 1858, I took two eggs out of a nest at Allan Hill strip. I went 

 back on the 30th, and found other two eggs in the same nest. 

 I got another nest at Kinaldy the same day with five fresh 

 eggs. This nest was profusely lined with wool and large pieces 

 of rabbit skins — the crow having stolen the dry skins to save 

 trouble. The gamekeeper was proud of his own bloody craft, 

 but denounced the corby for taking pheasants' eggs, when he 

 should have blamed its nature. As well condemn the swallow 

 for killing flies, or the lawyer for skinning his client. He told 

 me he shot both a crow and pheasant hen when it was on her 

 back robbing her nest. He took the fourteen eggs and set them 

 under a common hen to be reared, for the very purpose of being 

 shot down or maimed in the game preserve for the sport and 

 profit of his master — after all, so far as mock philanthropy is 

 concerned, the eggs might have been as well in the maw of the 

 crow. He told me his chief occupation was poisoning and 

 shooting carrion crows, magpies, hawks, and owls. He took me 

 to his lodge, and gave me two dead crows, three magpies, some 

 hawks and owls. The week before, Cambo gamekeeper told me 

 that in one day five guns shot 120 cock pheasants on Cambo 

 estate, but no hens — these being preserved for breeding — as the 

 Midianite maidens of Scripture " tvere reserved alive' for the use 

 of the Israelites. When pressed in winter, the corby will also 

 alight on the back of a rabbit, and with its powerful bill dig a 

 hole in its skull (as a batcher does with an axe on the skull of 

 an ox) and suck out its brains, as well as its eyes, when dead. 

 But is this worse than catching them in stamps, lying for hours 

 with broken legs, before being killed for the market 1 On February 



