34 ^/i^ SPORTS OF THE ttlGHLANDS chaP. 



they were within forty yards ; they then suddenly halted, stared 

 at us, snorted, and then went off at a trot, but soon breaking 

 into a gallop, fled rapidly away, but were in sight for a long 

 distance. Shot stood watching the deer for some time, but at 

 last seeing that we took no steps against them, looked at me, 

 and then went on hunting. We killed several more grouse and 

 a brace of teal. Towards the afternoon we struck off to the 

 shepherd's house. In the fringe of a birch that sheltered it, 

 we killed a blackcock and hen, and at last got to the end of 

 our walk with fifteen brace of grouse, five black game, one 

 mallard, a snipe, a woodcocl^, two teaJ, and two hares ; and 

 right glad was I to ease my shoulder of that portion of the 

 game which I carried to help Donald, who would at any time 

 have preferred assisting me to stalk a red deer than to kill and 

 carry grouse. Although my day's sport did not amount to 

 any great number, the variety of game, and the beautiful and 

 wild scenery I had passed through, made me enjoy it more 

 than if I had been shooting in the best and easiest muir in 

 Scotland, and killing fifty or sixty brace of birds. 



In preserving and increasing a stock of grouse, the first 

 thing is to kill the vermin of every kind, and none more care- 

 fully than the grey crows,^ as these keen-sighted birds destroy 

 an immense number of eggs. The grouse should also be well 

 watched in the neighbourhood of any small farms or corn-fields 

 that may be on the ground, as incredible numbers are caught 

 in horsehair snares on the sheaves of corn. 



A system of netting grouse has been practised by some 

 of the poachers lately, and when the birds are not wild 



' Gray says (Birds of Scotland, p. 178) that the hooded invariably breeds with the 

 carrion crow in almost every district of Western Scotland where the two are found. It 

 is a permanent residfent in the Inner and Outer Hebrides and St. Kilda, and particularly 

 mi.schievous to lambs and poultry on the west side of the Long Island. If it gets a 

 chance it will even rob eagles' nests. 



The Gaelic name of the bird is "flannag," which means to skin or flay. A Moray- 

 shire proverb said^ 



The guile, the Gordon, and the hooded craw, 

 Were the three worst things Moray ever saw. 



The guile is a common corn-weed ; the Gordon, the plundering Lord Lewis Gordon. 



" It is now, however, but seldom that Mor.iy ever sees a hooded crew, at least at a time 

 when its presence is really mjurious, strychnme and gunpowder having cleared the 

 country of it as a pest," Cf note on p. 48. 



A large case containing specimens of variations between the hooded and carrion crow- 

 may be seen at the Natural History Museum, Kensington, and ii well worthy of inspec- 

 tion by all who are interested in these birds. 



