At Home with Wild Nature 



I had noticed a number of rooks flying round the 

 place as I came down the ghyll and heard them cawing 

 excitedly as they retired to a little clump of birch trees 

 on the hillside, but did not connect them with the theft. 

 A pair of carrion crows, seen and heard a few days 

 previously in the neighbourhood, were blamed for the 

 robbery, although a thorough and widely extended 

 search had failed to discover their nest. 



Whilst in the act of looking round to see if I could 

 discover the empty shell of one of the partridge's eggs 

 I stumbled upon the nest of a grouse close beside a 

 sheep track and not twelve yards away from that of the 

 previously mentioned bird. She rose from two eggs, 

 and I could not understand her sitting at that time of 

 day if she were only laying, as her very small clutch 

 appeared to indicate. The circumstances puzzled me 

 until I found the shells of other eggs lying on boulders 

 round about. 



On my way home I found a lamb lying dead on the 

 hillside just above the spot where the horse with the 

 white nose and feet is seen grazing in the craggy 'lot- 

 ment depicted in our illustration, and reported the loss 

 to its owner as I passed his house. 



Next morning I called at the isolated farmhouse to 

 see if the old shepherd living in it had come across any- 

 thing interesting to me in his wanderings. Upon 

 leaving I noticed half a dozen large black birds, which 

 I took to be a family of carrion crows, busily engaged 

 in tearing the body of the dead lamb to pieces. Steady- 

 ing my field-glasses on the garden wall I discovered they 



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