SHETLAND PONIES. 125 



enjoy the shooting and to take an interest in what we kill. 

 With proper treatment and due care these Shetland ponies 

 become the most docile and fine^tempered animals in the 

 world ; but if once they are badly used they soon become as 

 full of tricks and as vicious as a monkey. The only bad 

 habit of which I could never break ours was opening every 

 gate which hindered his getting out. There was scarcely 

 any common fastening which he would not undo with his 

 teeth, and if he found a weak place iii railings he would push 

 against it till he broke it, and then gallop away for an hour 

 or two where he chose. He also had a peculiar knack of 

 finding out and opening the oat-chest in any stable. When 

 out on a marauding excursion of this kind he knew perfectly 

 that he was doing wrong, and would not allow me to catch 

 him, although at home he would follow me anywhere, putting 

 his nose into my hand to ask for apples or bread. At all 

 times, however, he allowed anyone of the children, particu- 

 larly my little girl, to catch him, and when caught always 

 came back as quietly as possible. There was a great deal of 

 fun and conscious roguery in the little fellow's style of mis- 

 chief which one could never help laughing at. When idle in 

 his field nothing seemed to please him so much as a game of 

 romps with any dog who would play with him. 



When 1 lived close to Nairn, as soon as ever he heard the 

 horn of the mail-coach, which was blown on its arrival at 

 the inn, he invariably ran to an elevated part of the field, 

 from which he could see over the wall, and waited there for 

 the mail to pass. As soon as it came opposite his station off 

 he set, galloping round and round the field with his heels 

 generally higher than his head, and his long mane and tail 

 streaming out, evidently showing himself off to obtain the 

 applause of the passengers, to whom he seemed to afford daily 

 amusement, as every head was turned back to see him as 

 long as they possibly could. 



Riding by the heronry on the Findhorn I saw the keeper 

 at Altyre searching in all the jackdaws' nests that he could 

 reach for the remains of the herons' eggs. These active little 

 marauders live in great numbers in the rocks immediately 

 opposite the herons, and keep up a constant warfare with 

 them during the breeding season, stealing an immense number 

 of their eggs, which they carry over to the holes and crevices 

 of the opposite rocks and eat them, out of reach of the herons. 

 The keeper took handfuls of the shells of the herons' eggs 

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