246 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



they will one day find tliem all suddenly dead ; and 

 the fact of their simultaneous and sudden deaths, 

 when so confined to be fed by the old birds, I have 

 myself been more than once aware of. Ferrets will 

 destroy their young if looked at or touched too 

 often or too soon, and so will rabbits; and there may 

 be something of the same animus in birds, when, as 

 they cannot eat their young as the ferret and rabbit 

 will do, they may have some other means of destroy- 

 ing life. 



Some people suppose that the kestrel or windhover 

 hawk is not a vermin ; and I have even seen it set 

 down by a writer claiming to be a naturalist and 

 sporting authority, that that hawk has been erro- 

 neously denounced as a destroyer of game. All I 

 know is, that I have shot dozens of them in the act of 

 carrying off my young pheasants and partridges, as 

 well as chickens from the hen-coops, besides finding 

 the legs of young game in their nests, and shooting 

 them in the fields in the act of eating young part- 

 ridges. Snakes will take young partridges and 

 pheasants recently hatched, or, indeed, anything alive 

 that they can swallow ; and I have no doubt but that 

 the adder will do the same. Squirrels are very de- 

 structive to young plantations, particularly to the 

 fir, taking off" the whole of the year's shoot, and 

 eating it, besides sucking the eggs of game, which I 

 once shot them doing. I saw by the manner in which 

 the squirrel handled the egg and carried it up a tree, 

 that he knew very well what he was about ; and ever 

 after that, where there was a preserve of pheasants, I 

 have killed them. When there are no pheasants 

 their graceful agility and pretty ways have saved 

 them from my gun. Speaking of pets, my poor cor- 



