48 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



in preserving game is, tiiat the animals should be left in perfect 

 quiet. A man walking about with a gun in his hand, shooting 

 at magpies and crows, does nearly as much mischief to the 

 preserves as if he shot at the game itself. 



A quiet intelligent trapper does more good in killing vermin 

 than a dozen men with guns. The former sees a pair of crows,^ 

 or a stoat ; if he is well skilled in his profession, the creatures 

 are dead by the next day, having been caught without noise 

 and without disturbing a single head of those animals which 

 are required to be kept in peace and quiet. 



The shooting keeper in rrftiking his way through woods 

 and coverts to get shots at vermin, often fails in killing it, 

 but is sure to disturb and molest the game, driving it here 

 and there, and exposing it to the view and attacks of hawks 

 and poachers. I have always a far better opinion of the 

 usefulness of a keeper when I see him with a number of traps 

 on his shoulder, than when he carries his gun always with 

 him. It is no bad amusement occasionally to accompany an 

 intelligent and experienced trapper on his rounds, and see 

 his plans to deceive and entice the fox and the otter, the 

 hawk or the raven. 



In catching all these animals, the spot to be selected for 

 trapping should not be near their abodes or nests, but in that 

 part of the outskirts of the covers where they wander during 

 the night-time in pursuit of prey. Almost every kind of vermin 

 hunts in the open country and fields, wherever they may lie 

 concealed during the day : for knowing that rabbits, hares, and 

 the other animals which form their principal food, resort to the 

 pastures, the corn-fields, or the waterside to feed during the 

 night ; to these same places do their hungry enemies follow 

 them. Hawks and crows, too, who feed in the daytime, are 



' C. cornix, the hooded crow, feeds on almost everything and even kills young lambs, 

 first picking out their eyes. Eats grain. I have killed this bird of every variety and 

 shade of grey and black, sometimes quite black, at other times marked as described [in 

 histories of birds], ijnd in every intermediate variety. There appears to be no internal 

 difference between the hooded crow and the common carrion crow of the south ; the 

 hooded crow being a northern bird.— C. St. J. 



C. ftugilfgus (rook) eats eggs. — C. St. J. 



The hooded crow is the most numerous of all the vermin in the north of Scotland 

 with which a keeper has to contend. Ravens too maintain themselves in fair numbers in 

 the northern mountainous districts owing to their nests being so difficult of access. But 

 the black-backed gulls are believed by Mr. J. Smith of Assynt to destroy as many eggs 

 of game as do the hooded crows. 



