138 FIELD NOTES EOR THE YEAR. 



them weighing above four pounds each. Although I fre- 

 quently afterwards put in the line, I never caught any fish 

 excepting eels, but of these a vast number. This proves how 

 favourite a food of the otter eels must be, as these animals 

 appear to live constantly at the loch, where they could have 

 found nothing else to prey upon. A highland loch without 

 trout is, however, a rare thing, as they are almost invariably 

 well stocked with them. 



There are one or two grassy hillocks near these lakes to 

 which these mischievous robbers, the hooded crows, bring the 

 eggs which they have pilfered in order to eat them at their 

 leisure ; and until I administered a dose of strychnia, I never 

 passed these places without finding the fresh remains of eggs: 

 partridges, plovers, snipes, redshanks, wood-pigeon, ducks, 

 and teal, all seemed to have contributed to support these 

 ravenous birds. There was a nest of a teal with eight eggs 

 in a small thicket of heather, in a situation apparently secure 

 from all risk of being discovered. I only knew of it in con- 

 sequence of my retriever having put up the old bird. Fre- 

 quently afterwards I saw her on her downy nest, but one 

 day both teal and eggs were gone ; and when I went to the 

 grassy hillock which the crows used for a dining-table, there 

 were the remains of all the eight eggs. 



Poisoning with strychnia is by far the most effectual way 

 of destroying crows. If you put a piece of carrion in a tree 

 well seasoned with this powerful drug, the ground below it 

 will soon be strewed with the bodies of most of the crows in 

 the neighbourhood, so instantaneous is their death on swallow- 

 ing any of it. It seems almost immediately to paralyse 

 them, and they fall down on the spot. 



In the stagnant pools near the river Nairn there are great 

 numbers of that singular worm called by the country people 

 the hair-worm, from its exact resemblance to a horsehair. 

 In these pools there are thousands of them, twisting and 

 turning about like living hairs. The most singular thing 

 regarding them is that if they are put for weeks in a drawer 

 or elsewhere, till they become as dry and brittle as it is pos- 

 sible for anything to be, and to all appearance perfectly dead 

 and shrivelled up, yet on being put into water they gradually 

 come to life again, and are as pliable and active as ever. The 

 country people are firmly of opinion that they are nothing 

 but actual horsehair turned into living things by being 

 immersed for a long time in water of a certain quality. All 



