GROUSE. 137 



lander in fifty, of those who shoot through the short glory of 

 a Scottish autumn, knows anything of them. 



One such sportsman said to me once, after we had 

 emerged from a short cut down a belt of forest on the edge 

 of steep corries, where the mist was lying pretty thick, and 

 the rain passing in squalls over the tree tops, that he had 

 never seen such an "infernal region in his life ; and as for 

 banshees, why, it is just the most promising cover you could 

 want." I was bound to confess I had never come across 

 anything more weird than this locality, in many wild 

 expeditions in both hemispheres. 



The highland rabbits like the hillsides; the broken 

 ground gives them great protection from beasts and birds 

 of prey, and they do but little digging " the conies are but 

 a feeble folk, yet they build their burrows in the rocks" 

 applies here very well. Yet, even with this protection close 

 At hand, they suffer occasionally from the talons of the free- 

 booter. On one occasion I found on a hollow ledge of stone, 

 protected from the wind and rain by an overhanging cornice, 

 as many as five full-grown rabbits, every one with its back 

 broken and both eyes pecked out, but otherwise untorn or 

 uninjured, the work probably of a young and over-fed eagle, 

 for one had been seen sweeping about the neighbourhood a 

 few days before. The royal bird is clearly an epicure, or 

 mighty fond of hunting ! Owls, too, play havoc with the 

 young ones, stealing along in the twilight and picking them 

 off the hillocks where they congregate, with the utmost 

 speed and certainty. For this reason, as for many others, 

 the bird should be protected by farmers, not only in the 

 north but in the south. 



Snap shots were now the order of the day, and very 

 pretty shooting it was too, turning the bunnies up from 

 their warm shelters under piles of withered fern fronds, and 

 taking them " on the hop " as they dodged between their 

 abundant covers. 



Twenty minutes of this sort of thing satisfied me for the 



