136 THE KEEPER'S BOOK 



ment frightened the owl off, when he made straight for 

 a tree near where the other keeper was concealed and 

 perched above him. N eedless to say, his ravages among 

 ducklings were avenged. As I recorded in the Scotsman 

 some time ago, a tawny owl picked up a squirrel on the 

 public road at midday ; and I have discovered, by placing 

 weasels and short-eared owls together, that the weasels 

 were killed and devoured by the owls. 



The short-eared owl is a winter visitor, and as it is 

 only on rare occasions that it breeds in this country and 

 has a chance of seeing young game, I would plead for 

 its protection. During the vole plague on the Border 

 pasture-lands about a dozen years ago, scores were to 

 be seen nesting in the heather like grouse, and laying 

 as many as ten and twelve eggs. While studying these 

 birds in Ettrick Forest, I took a couple of young ones 

 home in my pocket for the purpose of finding out as 

 much as possible about their habits. 1 1 has been demon- 

 strated beyond all doubt that in whatever part of the 

 world a plague of mice appears, short-eared owls, im- 

 pelled by a powerful instinct, are sure to follow and de- 

 vour them. H o w they make the discovery is one of those 

 mysteries in nature upon which we can only speculate. 

 Capital was made out of the mice plague by farmers, on 

 the ground that the destruction of pasture by the mice 

 was traceable to the destruction of hawks, owls, etc., 

 by gamekeepers, in the interests of game-preservation. 

 Unfortunately for the advocates of this theory, mice 

 plagues had periodically appeared in different parts of 



