BRITISH FERTILITY. 205 



gun of the sportsman ; the crows perch upon the tops 

 of the chimneys of the houses ; in the East the stork 

 builds upon the house-tops, in the midst of cities ; in 

 Scotland the rats follow the birds and the Highland- 

 ers to the herring fisheries along the coast, and dis- 

 perse with them when the season is over ; the eagle 

 continues to breed in the mountains with the prize 

 of a guinea upon every egg ; the rabbits have to be 

 kept down with nets and ferrets ; the game birds 

 grouse, partridges, ducks, geese continue to swarm 

 in the face of the most inveterate race of sportsmen 

 under the sun, and in a country where it is said the 

 crows destroy more game than all the guns in the 

 kingdom. 



Many of the wild birds, when incubating, will 

 allow themselves to be touched by the hand. The 

 fox frequently passes the day under some covered 

 drain or under some shelving bank near the farm 

 buildings. The otter, which so long ago disappeared 

 from our streams, still holds its own in Scotland, 

 though trapped and shot on all occasions. A mother 

 otter has been known boldly to confront a man carry- 

 ing off her young. 



Thomas Edward, the shoemaker-naturalist of Aber- 

 deen, relates many adventures he had during his noc- 

 turnal explorations with weasels, polecats, badgers, 

 owls, rats, etc., in which these creatures showed as- 

 tonishing boldness and audacity. On one occasion, 

 a weasel actually attacked him ; on another, a polecat 

 made repeated attempts to take a moor-hen from the 



