262 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



misfortune to meet with a keeper who coolly as- 

 sured me that he had lately shot a squirrel in the 

 act of devouring a half-grown pheasant, which it 

 had carried, in spite of its struggles, to the sum- 

 mit of a tall tree with as much ease as if it had 

 been a filbert. This man was in the employment 

 of an uncompromising preserver of game, at 

 whose hands all other ' fowls of the air and creep- 

 ing things ' found but little mercy, and squirrels 

 and stoats were included in the same black list. 

 A subsequent cross-examination, however, con- 

 vinced me that his story was a pure invention of 

 the brain, got up at the moment as a conclusive 

 argument to repel my attempted vindication of 

 his little victims, several of which were lying 

 about the gravel-walks in various stages of de- 

 composition for the ferret-hutch had been already 

 glutted, and there was no room on the gable end 

 of the barn for another culprit. My expostula- 

 tions, I grieve to say, were equally fruitless with 

 master and man. In that extensive and thickly 

 wooded district the species may survive for many 

 years in spite of all this persecution. The real 

 offence is, the nibbling off the upper shoots of the 

 Scotch fir during seasons of scarcity : a plausible 

 casus belli is thus established against it, and every 

 other crime, possible and impossible, is laid to its 

 charge : ' the wish is father to the thought : ' the 



