BRITISH FERTILITY 187 



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 Highlanders to the herring 

 fisheries along the coast, and disperse 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 king- 

 dom. 



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 disap- 

 peared from our streams, still holds its own in Scot- 

 land, though trapped and shot on all occasions. A 

 mother otter has been known boldly to confront a 

 man carrying off her young. 



Thomas Edward, the shoemaker-naturalist of Ab- 

 erdeen, relates many adventures he had during his 

 nocturnal explorations with weasels, polecats, badg- 

 ers, owls, rats, etc., in which these creatures 

 showed astonishing boldness and audacity. On one 

 occasion, a weasel actually attacked him; on an- 

 other, a polecat made repeated attempts to take a 

 moor-hen from the breast pocket of his coat while 



