MAY 119 



deadly intention, finishing up by playing with the 

 young rabbits that formed his audience and worrying 

 them affectionately. In the case I have just described, 

 it does not seem that the stoat had any intention of 

 making its breakfast on the blackbird. It had ample 

 opportunity of doing so had it been so disposed. 



XXI 



In some respects the Wild Birds Protection Acts, 

 passed near the end of the nineteenth century, 

 have fulfilled the purpose of those who pro- 

 moted them. The golden eagle, the kite, the great- 

 crested grebe, and the goldfinch are among the birds 

 which have been redeemed, if not from actual exter- 

 mination, at least from something very near it. But 

 leglislation has not availed to avert the extinction of 

 the osprey as a British-breeding species, and despite the 

 sedulous efforts of certain landowners in the north to 

 protect the last of the eyries from the ruthless rapacity 

 of professional collectors, these chivalrous birds of ravin 

 have been deprived of the last vestige of hospitality in 

 these islands. Their last asylum was Loch Arkaig, in 

 Lochaber, which, thanks to the vigilant guardianship 

 of the late and the present Cameron of Lochiel, was 

 never without a pair of ospreys long after they had 

 been evicted from every other breeding station in the 

 United Kingdom. 



It was in 1899 that I last saw them there, when I 

 was fishing for trout in that beautiful loch. In that 

 season two pairs bred there; one eyrie being on the 



