PERSECUTION OF FALCONID.E. 145 



ruljaris. Truly this specific title must have been 

 applied to it in very different times from the present. 

 I have never seen one on the wing in this part of 

 Scotland. It has become in fact a rarissima arig, 

 even in those districts where it used to be abundant; 

 the result of constant persecution. I may, per- 

 haps, be allowed here to quote from a former 

 little work of my own,* a list of "vermin" 

 destroyed on the Glengarry property, furnished to 

 me by a friend, who was himself the lessee of the 

 shootings at the time from 1837 to 1840 and 

 by whose orders the slaughter was carried into 

 effect. If we remember that this system has been 

 carried out generally for many past years through- 

 out Scotland, with a view to the preservation of 

 grouse, the excessive rarity of the larger species 

 of Falconid<c at the present day can no longer be 

 a matter of surprise. Numerous keepers were 

 employed in this wholesale massacre, who received 

 not only liberal wages, but extra rewards, varying 

 from .3 to '5, according to their success in the 

 work of extermination. The ornithologist will be 

 a little puzzled by the titles given to some of the 

 llaptoren, but the names and epithets applied to 

 the greater number of them are, nevertheless, 

 unusually clear and appropriate, and will leave 

 "Game Birds and Wild Fowl. Their Friends and their Foea." 



