i 3 4 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



for in a pamphlet entitled Observations on Mo/at, and its 

 Mineral Waters, published in 1800, T. Garnett wrote : 



This lake which is called Loch Skeen, is noo yards in_ length, and 

 about 400 in breadth ; there is a little island where eagles bring out their 

 young in great safety, as the water is deep, and there is no boat on the lake. 

 The water of this lake abounds with very fine trout 1 . 



In 1806, Dr Patrick Graham recorded its presence on 

 the southern confines of Perthshire, "The Osprey or Water 

 Eagle, builds her nest in some of the lofty trees in Inchma- 

 homa." It is known also that it frequented the island of 

 Inch Galbraith in Loch Lomond, an islet in Lake Menteith, 

 Loch Awe, Loch Maree and similar places. But these sites 

 have long been deserted. 



In the twentieth century its breeding places have been 

 confined to the counties of Inverness and Sutherland, but 

 even here, in spite of all efforts at protection, there has been 

 no security. Loch Askaig has been untenanted since 1911, 

 while Loch-an-Eilein, whose ruined castle, built on an islet, 

 had been a regular nesting-place for a hundred years, has 

 been deserted since 1 902 (see p. 192). A pair of Ospreys bred 

 in 1916 in Scotland, in a place that shall be unmentioned, 

 but they are the last of a banished race. 



The ranks of other Scottish birds of prey have also been 

 thinned by man, though till now they have escaped the final 

 catastrophe of extinction ; but decrease in numbers and limi- 

 tation of range surely mark the steps of a decadence of which 

 extermination is the end. One cannot think of the persecu- 

 tion which in the case of the PEREGRINE FALCON (Falco 

 peregrinus), has replaced the protection of former times, 

 without wondering how this fine hawking bird could survive, 

 were the ranks of Scottish breeding birds not reinforced 

 annually from the Continent. The numbers of the HEN 

 HARRIER (Circus cyaneus] have seriously dwindled in Ire- 

 land, and in Scotland it has been driven to the Orkneys and 

 Outer Hebrides, and to the fastnesses mainly of the northern 

 mainland. The COMMON BUZZARD (Buteo buteo] has dis- 

 appeared from Ireland, though it still nests in the Inner 

 Hebrides and in the west and central Highlands of Scotland 

 and very rarely in the Outer Hebrides and Orkney. The 



1 Situation and name indicate the " Water Eagle "; the little rocky island 

 is a typical nesting-place for the Osprey, as Dr W. Eagle Clarke tells me. 



