86 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



young rook straight towards me. Down he went 

 smartly, and another, and another, and likewise 

 every one of the seventeen young rooks that were 

 in that clump. The curious thing was that they 

 gave me just time to load ; never more than two 

 came together, and all persisted in flying straight 

 towards me, when safety and their birthplace lay in 

 the opposite direction. My seventeenth and last 

 cartridge accounted for the seventeenth and last 

 rook. 



What I liked best in my war against vermin was 

 a family stoat-hunt. In this I was of the same 

 mind as an old keeper whom I had known ever 

 since I was old enough to get into mischief. This 

 old fellow told me he would walk ten miles any day 

 to ' attend to ' a litter of stoats. I was always 

 ready to go with him. Six or seven is the usual 

 number of stoats in a litter, though nearly twenty 

 have been found, with every indication that all 

 belonged to one mother. The most I ever found 

 was ten. And there is attached to this litter of ten 

 a scrap of history which made their circumvention 

 of special interest to me. Through all one shooting 

 season I had succeeded in preserving a very beautiful 

 silvery-white hen pheasant. Not having seen her 

 for many weeks, I naturally was delighted when 

 I saw her sitting on one of the nests I found at the 

 end of May. All went well for a while, till one 

 Sunday morning, when I went to have a look at 



