52 CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 



the shot, and on again searching the ground, I found 

 they had discovered and dragged from their hiding- 

 places seven more ducks : four were picked nearly 

 clean, hut the remaining three, though quite dead, were 

 only slightly torn. On looking over the spot on the 

 following morning I found two more skeletons, which 

 I had missed on my previous search. 



On the moors in the north they are, without ex- 

 ception, the worst vermin that a game preserver has to 

 contend with. They may be seen in the spring 

 quartering the ground like setters, and the nest of a 

 Grouse or other game bird once discovered is soon 

 robbed of its contents. 



They usually have some elevated spot to which they 

 carry the eggs before sucking them, leaving the empty 

 shells lying about in dozens, as if to draw attention to 

 their bad deeds. 



They are generally shy, wary birds, seeming instinc- 

 tively to know when anyone is in pursuit of them. I 

 have often, however, shot them by driving or riding 

 along the hill roads in the Highlands, as they take but 

 little notice of a conveyance. 



During the autumnal migration I have occasionally 

 met with them in the North Sea, apparently tired out 

 by their long flight, and glad of a rest on any boat or 

 vessel they might meet with on their course. 



Two of these birds and a Jackdaw, which had fol- 

 lowed us one day in a thick fog for a considerable 

 distance, at last settled on one of the paddle-boxes of 

 the steamboat. A shot or two which I fired at some 

 Gannets at first greatly alarmed them, and one of the 

 crows beat a speedy retreat ; it soon however, returned, 

 and after a time they got used to the noise of the 



