208 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



numbers of this prolific and really mischievous 

 crow for he occasionally varies his sport by dig- 

 ging out the eyes of young lambs were kept 

 within due limits.* 



In many parts of Scotland and the north of Eng- 

 land, the blackcock and the partridge also suffer 

 from his depredations, but in the central and 

 southern portions of the island, he is fortunately 

 only a winter visitor, although in an open country 

 where extensive downs and flat table-land prevail, 

 with wide fields and stone fences, the partridge cer- 

 tainly finds a dangerous neighbour in the magpie, 

 to whose malpractices such districts are peculiarly 

 favourable ; nevertheless, his arch-enemy is the 

 human poacher, and there is no period through- 

 out the whole year when so much injury is done 

 to this bird and to the pheasant as during the 

 early laying season. Keepers are wont to attri- 

 bute all robberies of this kind to what they call 

 6 vermin,' winged or four-footed, and accordingly 

 wage an implacable war against every bird and 



* Mr. St. John, in his ' Field Notes and Tour in Sutherland/ 

 says that even the osprey during nidification is closely watched 

 by the hooded crows and the nest frequently plundered in the 

 absence of the female ; and he remarks, with true sports- 

 manlike feeling, " The hooded crow is the only bird against 

 whom I wage constant and unpitying warfare. I have so often 

 detected them destroying my most favourite birds and their 

 eggs that I have no pity on them." 



