CROWS BADGERS ROOKS. 115 



home with me alive, and turned it into a small enclosure, 

 where it amused us much by its tameness and confidence, 

 beginning to eat worms and porridge immediately, and seem- 

 ing to enjoy itself in this new situation as much as if it had 

 been always accustomed to it. 



There are no enemies so destructive to the wild fowl as the 

 carrion or rather the hooded crow, which is the kind we 

 have here. Eggs and young birds all come alike to these 

 robbers, but the keeper at Spynie manages to kill great 

 numbers of them by poison ; he uses strychnia, a very small 

 quantity of which kills the crow on the spot. 



The badgers hunt more and more every day at this season 

 if the weather is open, and apparently they wander several 

 miles from their home. 



On the 2nd of March I see the rooks building. There is 

 much snow on the mountains, but the low country is quite 

 clear. 



The principal wild fowl on Loch Spynie, Loch Lee, &c., 

 just now, are mallards, sheldrakes, widgeons, teals, pintails, 

 scaup ducks, pochards, golden eyes, a few swans, bald coots 

 and waterhens, besides an infinity of gulls, redshanks, plovers, 

 peewits, curlews, &c. They all keep up a constant calling 

 and noise, in the morning and evening particularly. All the 

 ducks, though collected in flocks, still keep in pairs, so that 

 when a large flock is on wing, it seems to consist wholly of 

 different pairs of birds. 



I have tried two or three days to get at the largest wild 

 swan on Loch Lee, but without success; my fruitless attempts 

 I do not mark down -Haras non numero nisi serenas. How- 

 ever, on the 6th, a fine sunny day, as I passed at some distance 

 from the lake where the swans were feeding, they rose and 

 alighted on the largest of the pieces of water; seeing this, 

 and that they were not inclined to take to the sea im- 

 mediately, I sent the boy who was with me round the lake 

 where they were, while I made my preparations for receiving 

 them at their feeding lake, supposing that they would return 

 to it if allowed to rest for an hour or so and then quietly 

 moved ; even if they did not alight, I knew that I was pretty 

 sure of their line of flight to the sea, and they seldom flew 

 very high. I waded across part of the loch to an island, 

 where I determined to await them, and set to work to make 

 up a hiding-place of long heather, &c. This done, I loaded 

 my gun with large shot and cartridges, and established my- 



