POLTALLOCH 13 



for the first time artificially introduced into Argyle- 

 shire by Mr. Askew at Minard Castle in 1845, 

 and that the comments of the neighbours upon 

 the attempt was that it would never do, that the 

 climate was too wet, and that it was no use to 

 attempt to acclimatise a creature so obviously un- 

 suited by nature for the locality. Would that the 

 prophecy had been correct ! The rabbits have 

 become almost as great a pest as they are in Aus- 

 tralia, and defy the elements everywhere, except 

 along the river banks, where great numbers are 

 drowned by unusually heavy floods, and even there 

 they speedily recruit their numbers, and sport 

 about as merrily and carelessly as others did 

 before the flood in the days of Noe. In Scotland, 

 as elsewhere, they are a source of strife between 

 gamekeepers and tenants ; but paradoxically 

 enough it would seem that the former are the 

 advocates of their destruction and the latter of 

 their preservation. Many of the farmers pay a 

 large proportion of their rent out of the profits 

 made from the sale of this spontaneously developed 

 crop, and resent their being trapped or snared by 

 the laird's retainers, while they themselves neglect 

 to keep them down during the early summer 

 months, when they are valueless and unsaleable. 

 On a grouse moor they can only be regarded as 

 an unmitigated nuisance ; as it is hardly possible 

 to prevent any but the steadiest dogs from point- 

 ing them, while few are shot from the double fear 



