CHAPTER TEN BIRDS OF PREY 



clear pools of the river, and I believe she seldom pounces 

 in vain. Having caught a trout or small salmon, she flies 

 with it to land, or to some rock, and there tears it up. 

 When the river is too high and black for the fish to be at- 

 tainable, no dead carcass comes amiss to her; and in floods 

 on the Findhorn there is seldom any dearth of food of this 

 kind. Mountain sheepor wounded roe are frequently swept 

 down its rapid course, when swollen with much rain or by 

 the meltingof snows on the highermountains from whence 

 this river derives its source. This winter, a young red deer 

 (a calf of about eight months old), was found in the river. 

 Theanimal had been shotwith a slugthroughthe shoulder, 

 and had probably taken to the water (as wounded deer are 

 in the habit of doing), and had been drowned and carried 

 down the stream.* 



That beautiful bird, the kite, is now very rare in this 

 country.! Occasionally I have seen one, wheeling and 

 soaring at an immense height; but English keepers and 

 traps have nearly extirpated this bird, as no greater enemy 

 or more destructive a foe to young grouse can exist. Their 

 large and ravenous young require a vast quantity of food, 

 and the old birds manage to keep their craving appetite 

 well supplied. Not only young grouse and black game, but 

 great numbers of young hares are carried to the nest. 

 Though a bird of apparently such powerful and noble 



*These notes on the habits of the osprey are very valuable, for it is now almost, if not 

 quite, extinct as a breeding species in the British Isles. Sad to say, St John himself was 

 the accomplice of Mr Dunbar of Thurso in slaying a pair of ospreys that were nesting 

 on Loch Assynt, probably the last that bred in Sutherland. (See Natural History and 

 Sport in Moray, pp. 157-163.) — Ed. 



tThe kite, Milviis regalis, is not now known to breed in the British Isles except at 

 two or three places in Wales, where they are vigilantly protected. — Ed. 



