278 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



buzzards, falcons, badgers, and even snakes and 

 adders, have been deposed to by men whose solitary 

 and serious lives on the upland sheep farms afford 

 them few other distractions than those which may 

 be obtained from watching the ways of the wild 

 creatures, which, except their masters' flocks, are 

 the only inhabitants of the moorlands. Excellent 

 bird portraits, by Mr George Lodge, so well known 

 for his illustrations of scenes in the hawking field, 

 serve to emphasise the distinction between the useful 

 kestrel and the destructive sparrow-hawk, and intro- 

 duce the reader to the short-eared owl, which has 

 now settled in numbers in the vole-infested region ; 

 and if the mind wearies of the woes of the Scottish 

 dalesmen, the description of the visit of the enter- 

 prising chairman, Sir Herbert Maxwell, and of the 

 secretary, Mr Harting, to the vole-infested plains of 

 Thessaly, presents a picture of the impact of the 

 restless West on the brooding East which cannot fail 

 to raise a smile. The chairman of ' your Committee ' 

 landing, eager to see the results of the introduction 

 of the ' mouse-typhus bacillus ' among the voles, was 

 met by a steamer chartered by Turkish landowners 

 to bring holy water from Mecca to sprinkle the in- 

 fected district ! According to the evidence of Mr 

 David Glendinning, a shepherd, the short-eared owls 

 weasels .increased in numbers almost propor- 



