At Home with Wild Nature 



these birds will sometimes stand and toy with each 

 other's powerful beaks, whilst labouring under great 

 emotional distress for the safety of a family of young 

 ones nearly ready to fledge. 



I know of no enemy not even the dreaded peregrine 

 falcon that can put the fear of death into the heart of 

 a red grouse with greater speed and thoroughness than 

 the raven. On a fine frosty November morning a moor 

 may at break of day appear to be alive with grouse call- 

 ing far and near in joyous welcome of the coming day, 

 but if a raven should, unseen behind some sheltering 

 ridge, utter a single note, every voice is hushed in- 

 stantly, and the whole neighbourhood becomes one vast 

 solitude of aching silence. 



The carrion crow is, on account of its greater 

 numerical strength, far more mischievous than the 

 raven. It will bite off the tongue of a lamb in the 

 process of being born, or peck the eyes out of the head 

 of a " cast " sheep* with equal readiness. I should 

 characterize it as by far the greatest winged egg thief 

 in the British Islands. Some years ago my brother and 

 I picked up the empty shells of no fewer than sixty-four 

 grouse eggs, and twelve belonging to the common 

 partridge, under a tree containing a carrion crow's nest 

 with only two young ones in it. A crow in search of the 

 nest of any ground breeding bird flies so low 

 that its wings almost brush the heather or grass, 

 and if it should succeed in scaring a sitter off her eggs 

 * A sheep that has rolled over on its back in some slight declivity in 

 the ground and cannot regain its feet on account of the heavy fleece it 

 is wearing at the time. 



