WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



I wonder that it has never occurred to anyone in this coun- 

 try to follow the example of the Chinese in teaching the cor- 

 morant to fish. The bold and voracious disposition of this 

 bird makes it easy enough to tame, and many of our lochs 

 and river-mouths would be well adapted for a trial of its 

 abilities in fishing; and it would be an amusing variety in 

 sporting to watch the bird as he dived and pursued the fish 

 in clear water. We might take a hint from our brethren of 

 the Celestial Empire with some advantage in this respect. 



A curious anecdote of a brood of young wild ducks was 

 told me by my keeper to-day. He found in some veryrough, 

 marshy ground,whichwasformerlyapeat-moss,eightyoung 

 ducks nearly full-grown, prisoners, as it were, in one of the 

 old peat-holes. They had evidently tumbled in some time 

 before, and had managed to subsist on the insects, &c., that 

 it contained or that fell into it. From the manner in which 

 they had undermined the banks of their watery prison, the 

 birds must have been in it for some weeks. The sides were 

 perpendicular, but there were small resting-places under 

 the bank which prevented their being drowned. The size of 

 the place they were in was about eight feet square, and in 

 this small space they had not only grown up, but thrived, 

 being fully as large and heavy as any other young ducks of 

 the same age. 



In shooting water-fowl I have often been struck by the 

 fact that as soon as ever life is extinct in a bird which falls 

 in the sea or river, the plumage begins to get wet and to be 

 penetrated by the water, although as long as the bird lives 

 it remains dry and the wet runs off it. I can only account 

 for this by supposing that the bird, as long as life remains, 



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