66 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



Indeed, one wonders that the birds themselves cannot 

 tell that there is something wrong with the place 

 from the fact that so many of last year's nests contain 

 mummified remains of old birds that were caught and 

 killed upon their nests. 



AN EVASIVE MARAUDER. 



In the bush nearest to the pole two nests were 

 built this year. One, a moorhen's, was close to the 

 water ; but the first egg had not been laid twenty- 

 four hours before it was sucked, causing the nest, of 

 course, to be deserted. The other nest, a thrush's, 

 was near the top of the bush, and the bird had laid 

 her full number of eggs and commenced to sit before 

 fate overtook her. Now her half-eaten body lies 

 upon the broken eggshells. In the next bush a 

 yellowhammer commenced to build ; but a nest so 

 near the ground had no chance whatever ; and the 

 unfinished outline remained as silent evidence of a 

 tragedy. Finding so many rifled nests and murdered 

 birds makes one almost as bitter as the gamekeeper 

 against the stoat ; but even when you catch him up 

 a tree in the act of birds'-nesting, it is no easy matter 

 to bring this evasive criminal to justice. One famous 

 woodcock covert, where the firs grow close and dark 

 out of dark spongy soil, is a favourite haunt of the 

 stoats, which climb one fir tree after another in search 

 of birds and eggs. Here you may sometimes catch 

 sight of one, looking almost like a squirrel as it slips 

 nimbly from branch to branch ; but even though the 

 tree may be isolated, the pace at which the little beast 

 slithers down twenty feet of fir-trunk and leaps off 



