106 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR 

 CHAPTER XIII. 



FEBRUARY. 



Change of Colour in Stoats Affection of Otters for their Young Roe-li anting 

 Attachment of Birds to their Mates Food of Fieldfares during Snow - 

 Widgeon Wildfowl Shooting at Spynie Incidents in Shooting Winged 

 Swan Cats Food of Wild Geese Brent Goose. 



February 2nd. FEBEUARY is always with us the most snowy 

 month of the year. I find that, in my journal for the first 

 week of this month, during several years, it is generally 

 marked down that the country is clothed in snow. The 

 quantity of floating snow and ice which conies down the 

 river fills the bay, and sends the wild-fowl to some less 

 dreary part of the country. Occasionally a golden eye or 

 long-tailed duck pitches in some clear spot of the river, but 

 is almost immediately driven out again by the floating ice. 

 In some places the course of the river is quite altered, being 

 choked up by the accumulation of ice on the shallows, and 

 the water takes some new run. What becomes of the fish 

 during this kind of weather ? 



The rooks dig deep into the snow, and plough up the young 

 wheat in great quantities with their strong bills. The stoats 

 are now pure white in almost every instance, although I shot 

 one on the 3rd of this month who had only very partially 

 acquired his winter colour. My rabbit beagles ran him for a 

 long time full cry on some rough ground. Whenever the 

 stoat went into a rabbit-hole I turned him out again with a 

 ferret, in this way running him till I killed him. 



While the river is in this state of confusion with ice, &c., I 

 see that the otters take themselves to the unfrozen ditches 

 and springs to hunt for eels and flounders, which fish they 

 feed on apparently with great perseverance, if one can judge 

 by the distance they hunt for them in the snow. The otter, 

 judging from the ground he goes over, must commence 

 moving as soon as it is dark, and continue his hunting till 

 nearly daylight. 



Notwithstanding the shyness of the otter, this animal is 

 very determined in the defence of its young ones, and boldly 

 confronts a person who takes one of them up. My keeper 

 tells me that he has seen an old otter feeding her young with 

 fish : the two young ones were sitting on a flat stone at the 

 edge of the burn when their parent brought them a good- 

 sized trout. They immediately both seized the fish, pulling 



