NATURE 



585 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1907. 



HIGHLAND SPURT. 

 The Wild Sports and Natural History of the High- 

 lands. By Charles St. John. Pp. \x + 3i4. 

 (London : John Murray, 1907.) Price 2s. bd. net. 



THE appearance of a reprint of the ninth edition 

 of "The Wild .Sports of the Highlands," first 

 published sixty-one years ago, is sufficient proof of 

 the permanent merit of that delectable book, but 

 hardly affords a pretext for a set review of one so 

 well and widely known. More to the point, perhaps, 

 to recall the personality of the author, with which his 

 many readers are less familiar than they arc with his 

 writings. A great-grandson of Lord Bolingbroke, 

 the Tory Minister of Queen .\nne and .Secretary of 

 State to the Old Pretender, Charles St. John be- 

 came a clerk in the Treasury in 1.S2S, where he 

 proved a distinct failure. His heart was in the open 

 air; his uncle, the second Lord Bolingbroke. lent him 

 a lodge in Sutherland, where he had the good fortune 

 to win the affections of Miss Ann Gibson, a \ewcastle 

 banker, whom he married in 1834. His wife not 

 only brought him some money, but hearty sympathy 

 in his devotion to sport and natural historv. 



In these pursuits the St. Johns might have passed 

 their placid lives known to few except shepherds, 

 gillies, and such venturous sportsmen as had dis- 

 covered the splendid resources of the moors of Morav 

 and Sutherland, had not Cosmo Innes, SherifT of 

 .Moray, made acquaintance with the recluse and be- 

 come impressed with his knowledge of woodcraft 

 and wild animals Why, he asked, did not .St. 

 John turn his abundant leisure to account bv writing 

 on his favourite subjects? St. John laughed at the 

 notion, saying he was quite pleased if he could 

 manage to reply intelligibly to his few corre- 

 spondents; but in the end Innes persuaded him to 

 try his hand, so that, during the winter of 1844-5, 

 .St. John composed a few little essays on sport and 

 natural history. One of these, entitled " The Muckle 

 Hart of Benmore," Innes shaped into an article for 

 the Quarterly Review, which so much delighted the 

 editor, Lockhart, that St. John, stimulated by an 

 unexpected honorarium, set to work in earnest, and 

 before his early death in 1853, at the age of forty- 

 four, he had completed the work presently under 

 notice, "A Tour in .Sutherlandshire," two volumes, 

 published in 1849, and " Natural History and Sport 

 in Moray," published ten years after the author's 

 death. Death is the crowning act of all field 

 sports, and St. John was an adept in pursuit; but it 

 was from the bv-products, so to speak, of a day's 

 fishing, shooting, or stalking that he drew keenest 

 delight — the behaviour, the attitudes, the natural 

 traits of beast and bird. He found out for himself 

 manv secrets which are now well known to ever)' 

 iield-naturalist. Here is one, for instance, with 

 which all gamekeepers are familiar, but the cause of 

 which remains still to be elucidated. 



" It is a curious fact, but one which I have often 

 observed, that dogs frequently pass close to the nest 



NO. 1980, VOL. 76] 



of grouse, partridge, or other g;imc, without scent- 

 ing the hen bird as she sits upon her nest. I knew 

 this year of a partridge's nest which was placed close 

 to a narrow footpath near my house; :md although 

 not only my people, but all my dogs, were constantlv 

 passing within a foot and a half of the bird, they 

 never found her out, and she hatched her brood in 

 safety." 



Here, again, is a note the truth whereof is slowly 

 gaining ground, although it has had to fight its way 

 to acceptance through half a century of incredulity. 



" With regard to the mischief done by owls, all 

 the harm they do is amply repaid by their utility in 

 destroying a much more serious nuisance in the 

 shape not only of the various kinds of mice, but of 

 rats also; these animals being their principal food 

 and the prey which ihev an- most adaiHcd for catch- 

 ing." 



There has been a controversy in the Scotsman 

 lately about the food of the water-ousel or dipper, 

 opinion appearing to be equally divided upon the 

 question whether that bird devours the spawn of 

 fish. The late Prof. Newton, Frank Buckland, and 

 other good observers stoutly defend the dipper 

 against the accusation, but St. John entertained no 

 doubt about its truth. It is certainly difTicult to 

 undersand how a carnivorous bird, searching for 

 food at the bottom of the water, should be so dis- 

 criminating as to reject the ova of trout and salmon 

 and feed only on aquatic insects and their larvae. 

 Prof. Newton, however, wrote with much confidence 

 on this subject. 



" By the careless and ignorant it is accused of 

 feeding on the spawn of fishes, and it has been on 

 that account subjected to much persecution. In- 

 numerable examinations of the contents of its 

 stomach have not only proved that the charge is 

 baseless, but that the bird clears off many of the 

 worst enemies of the precious product." — ("Dic- 

 tionary of Birds." p. h68.) 



On the other hand, St. John's adverse verdict does 

 not seem to have been based on actual observation. 



" The water-ousel is supposed to commit great 

 havoc in the spawning beds of salmon and trout, 

 uncovering the ova and leaving what it does not eat 

 open to the attacks of eels and other fish, or liable 

 to be washed away by the current; and, notwith- 

 standing my regard for this little bird, I am afraid I 

 must admit that he is guilty of no small destruction 

 amongst the spawn. . . . Notwithstanding the bad 

 name he has acquired with fishermen, I never could 

 make up my mind to shoot him." 



It is a pity that grave charges like this should be 

 laid upon such slight evidence. It must be a very 

 feeble or poor-spirited eel that cannot help itself to 

 as much spawn as is good for it without employing 

 the dipper as pioneer. The question ought to be 

 settled once for all by examining the contents of the 

 stomach of a water-ousel shot among spawning 

 salmon. 



St. John's pages well bear re-perusal. They are 

 charged with the free air of the moor and the loch, 

 and. greatly as nature students have multiplied 

 since his day. none of them gives more direct in- 

 sight thrm he does into the vie intime of wild animals. 



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