JUNE. HOODED CROWS. 239 



some two hundred yards of line with strong hooks 

 at intervals of four or five yards, I set it, as far as 

 it would reach, across one part of the largest lake, 

 baiting the hooks with small trout and worms. 

 The next morning on examining the line I found 

 a great number of large eels on the hooks, several 

 of them weighing above four pounds each. Al- 

 though I frequently 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 those mischievous robbers, the 

 hooded crows, bring the eggs which they have pil- 

 fered 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 contri- 

 buted 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- 



