SEPTEMBER 189 



will admit at the last that he shoots it because it is a 

 hawk, and will improvise a story of his having once 

 seen a kestrel kill a young pheasant at the coops. 

 So, for a crime as rare as it is ill-attested, the race 

 must suffer. Upon the moors the Merlin is destroyed 

 because of its fancied penchant for grouse chicks, 

 though all observers agree that it preys, chiefly or 

 entirely, upon the smaller moorland birds, pipits, 

 twites and wheatears. But when we come to the 

 Owls we have a still stronger case. Here upon the 

 rails are the recognisable remains of sixty owls ; five 

 have been hanged within the week. There is some- 

 thing pitiable in seeing an owl, with its soft and 

 downy plumage showing such exquisite gradations 

 of colour, hanging, bedraggled by weather, until it 

 becomes a mere scarecrow — a thing of shreds and 

 patches. It is the pole-trap which has wrought this 

 fatal havoc. In the middle of the straight ride which 

 runs through the fir plantation, an upright post 

 bears upon its summit a toothed gin, like an ordinary 

 rat-trap but round in outline. This narrow alley 

 between the trees is a general highway. Every owl 

 or hawk which skims along it will alight upon the post, 

 the hawk to throw a keen glance around, the owl to 

 listen for the least rustle or stir of mouse or shrew. 

 Caught by the legs, they hang there, alive, sometimes 

 for days. The employment of this instrument of 

 torture is now prohibited by law, but it is doubtful 



