found at St. Abb's Head. 71 



travelling propensities, I have occasionally heard of his capture 

 at a distance from the Tyne in East Lothian, when journeying 

 to the streams which drain the uplands of the county. An old 

 trapper residing at Linton used to get one guinea per skin in 

 winter, but at present the price is much lower ; the traps were 

 pitched on little banks of sand or mud by the brink of the 

 stream, on which the footprints of the animal were visible. 



Within the last thirty years the numbers of the fox (Canis 

 vulpes) have been greatly reduced, but at that period they were 

 so numerous and audacious as to cross the country in open day. 

 Their approach to a farm onstead was notified by the poultry, 

 which, with loud cries, sought refuge by retreating either to the 

 yard or to the branches of some friendly tree ; the fox was often 

 seen to resort to the latter, and after vainly endeavouring to 

 reach his prey, departed, after indulging in those feelings, which, 

 I dare say, iEsop has interpreted with much truthfulness in his 

 well-known fable. Lambs were frequently destroyed, so that it 

 was necessary to watch them by night and by day ; the shepherd 

 hounded his dogs, and the farmer a brace of wire-haired grey- 

 hounds at the fox, and the latter generally fled towards his rocky 

 home. Dogs brought up in the neighbourhood learned to ap- 

 proach the cliffs with due caution ; but the county pack of fox- 

 hounds suffered so severely from the loss of the best dogs falling 

 over the cliffs whilst in hot pursuit of their artful quarry, that 

 the huntsmen purposely avoided drawing such covers as con- 

 tained outlying foxes from St. Abb's Head. One of my farm 

 servants, who spent part of his youth in that neighbourhood, once 

 succeeded in cutting off a fox's retreat to the cliffs with a brace 

 of shepherd's dogs, on which the former boldly dashed into the 

 sea and swam for a distant point, but the dogs dragged him on 

 shore and despatched him. 



Our boatman Hugh Grant once procured a wild cat [Felis 

 catus) when quite young, which resided five years in his house, 

 and produced several litters of four and five each, but invariably 

 deserted her family when they were four or five days old ; she 

 was a notable hunter, and although perfectly tame, showed great 

 animosity on being irritated. 



During snowy weather and high gales of wind, great num- 

 bers of hares (Lepus timidus) resort to the cliffs as well as to 

 the more shelving parts of the coast, and repose on the stony 

 beach just above high- water mark, even when it blows hard from 

 the open sea. 



Four pairs of the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) breed 

 on the coast of Berwickshire ; one at Burnmouth, one at Penny- 

 wick Cove to the west of St. Abb's, one at Ernesheugh, and a 

 fourth at Fast Castle, to which I may add two localities in East 



g2 



