98 WILD NATURE IN STRATHEARN. 



are off at once. A field of wheat (a cereal of 

 which they are very fond) or barley, where part 

 of the grain is laid or broken down by v/ind 

 or rain, is a good place to find them when the 

 grain is ripening, and if approached cautiously 

 and under cover, a right and left "in the blue" 

 may be got as they rise in a cloud, and in this 

 way a couple of brace, or more, may be got. 



I remember, one August afternoon, in a few 

 hours, with an old muzzle-loader, shooting so 

 many in a clump of trees at the corner of a 

 field of barley, just turning yellow, that I had 

 very great difficulty in carrying them home, 

 having no bag with me. Only one, so far as I 

 saw, escaped of all that came to that spot during 

 the afternoon, the branches of the spruce trees 

 effectually concealing me from the pigeons as 

 they came in. They ceased coming all at once. 

 Was it the escaped one that warned the others ? 



In 1894, Sir John Gilmour had from twenty 

 to twenty-five pigeons shot each month (total 

 shot 265), and their crops examined to find out 



