To Mountain Tarn 



the evils attending on grouse shooting in the 

 south are being imported. A gamekeeper has 

 been engaged. Vermin are being shot. What 

 constitutes vermin is left to the aforesaid game- 

 keeper, who is given to seeing it in everything, 

 except the creature he is left to watch. Vermin 

 has not the same range as in the Highlands. The 

 four-footed kind are mainly absent. The falcons 

 and hawks, which lend so much interest and charm 

 to the Shetland fauna, are in danger. In a new 

 place, unhampered by evil traditions, let a new 

 era set in, a new and saner treatment be followed. 

 Then would the experiment not be barren, even 

 if it failed. Let the invading grouse take the 

 ordinary risks. If it cannot hold its own against 

 an enemy infinitely less hurtful than the climate, 

 let that be the test that it ought not to be there. 

 What is needed for survival under unfavourable 

 circumstances is exceeding robustness. If any 

 agent can brace and select, and so create a moor- 

 land fauna for the abundant heather of Shetland, 

 that agent is the falcon. Common sense would 

 advise the importation of a few falcons, if there 

 were not enough. 



Further efforts to enrich the fauna, and make 

 the northern isles more to resemble the Highlands, 

 are being made. The dark hills must in every 

 detail become modern shooting moors. The 

 white hare is following on the grouse. It is now 

 some time since it came to Orkney. So very 



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