188 ' FRESH FIELDS 



he was trying to sleep. On still another occasion, 

 while he was taking a nap, an owl robbed him of 

 a mouse which he wished to take home alive, and 

 which was tied by a string to his waistcoat. He 

 says he has put his walking stick into the mouth of 

 a fox just roused from his lair, and the fox worried 

 the stick and took it away with him. Once, in 

 descending a precij)ice, he cornered two foxes upon 

 a shelf of rock, when the brutes growled at him 

 and showed their teeth threateningly. As he let 

 himself down to kick them out of his way, they 

 bolted up the precipice over his person. Along the 

 Scottish coast, crows break open shell-fish by carry- 

 ing them high in the air and letting them drop 

 upon the rocks. This is about as thoughtful a pro- 

 ceeding as that of certain birds of South Africa, 

 which fly amid the clouds of migrating locusts and 

 clip off the wings of the insects with their sharp 

 beaks, causing them to fall to the ground, where 

 they are devoured at leisure. Among the High- 

 lands, the eagles live upon hares and young lambs; 

 when the shepherds kill the eagles, the hares in- 

 crease so fast that they eat up all the grass, and 

 the flocks still suffer. 



The scenes along the coast of Scotland during the 

 herring-fishing, as described by Charles St. John 

 in his "Natural History and Sport in Moray," are 

 characteristic. The herrings appear in innumerable 

 shoals, and are pursued by tens of thousands of 

 birds in the air, and by the hosts of their enemies 

 of the deep. Salmon and dog-fish prey upon them 



