478 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



trees, in the hollow trunks of which the daws were also rear- 

 ing their brood. Every day the keeper missed one or two 

 young pheasants. Completely puzzled, he determined not to 

 quit them till he had detected the thief. At last down hops 

 the daw, peering about, until a young pheasant strayed a little 

 farther than the others. It was instantly picked up like a 

 grub, placed in a fork of the tree a tap on the head, and 

 then the young jacks breakfasted on pheasant. The keeper 

 shot the old daws, and the remaining young pheasants were 

 unmolested. All game above a week old are, however, safe 

 from jackdaws, and they never attack birds when they can 

 procure their more natural food. 



Huge Norway rats are very abundant in the stubble-fields 

 that skirt the Sound of Mull. They leave their snug places 

 of abode as soon as the corn ripens, and never quit the fields 

 till driven away by the cold. Were they as thickly scattered 

 over the ground in spring, they would no doubt do great in- 

 jury to the young game ; but at that time they live much 

 more in colonies, and hide themselves in barns and outbuild- 

 ings, where they rear their young. When shooting partridges 

 on the banks of a stream, one of our dogs made a steady point 

 into the pool. He had winded a Norway rat, which jumped 

 into the water and dived. I saw the creature struggling to 

 keep under, a few inches below the surface, until, disabled by 

 a shot, it crept under the bank, where I picked it up dying. 

 From first to last, this land-rat had been fully half a minute 

 under water, and never put up its head for breath, except 

 when striking ground to creep ashore. 



The adder is also common in Mull, and of course destroys 

 very young game ; but as it preys on vermin too, perhaps the 

 good it does counterbalances the evil. A few years ago, a 

 full-grown field-mouse was found in the stomach of an adder 

 killed near me in Kincardineshire ; while another had man- 

 aged to catch and swallow a young bird. They must have 

 the same power of extending the jaws as the boa-constrictors 



