12 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



that his visitor had met with so inhospitable a 

 reception ; but these agile creatures are such great 

 travellers that it would be impossible to preserve 

 them effectually on any single estate, however 

 large. It must, I fear, be admitted to be mis- 

 chievous and ferocious ; St. John describes it as 

 one of the most destructive of its tribe, and says 

 that the shepherds accuse it of destroying great 

 numbers of sheep. " His method of attack is 

 said to be by seizing the unfortunate sheep by 

 the nose, which he eats away until the animal is 

 destroyed on the spot, and dies a lingering death." 

 As he also adds that they kill numbers of lambs ; 

 and, when they take to poultry killing, enter the 

 hen-house fearlessly, committing immense havoc, 

 in fact, seldom leaving a single fowl alive, it 

 would not be easy to justify their preservation, or 

 to regret that they have ceased to be as abundant 

 as when he used frequently to shoot them with 

 the rifle on the tall pine trees in Sutherlandshire. 

 They destroy game of all kinds, and even squirrels, 

 and their character altogether is so bad, that one 

 who deprecates the absolute extinction of any of 

 our indigenous fauna will best serve his purpose 

 by dropping the subject. 



If some animals are disappearing others are 

 taking their place. It is difficult for one who has 

 often seen the rabbits on a hill-side in the evening 

 swarming like mites in an old Cheshire cheese, to 

 realise that these destructive little creatures were 



