86 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
young rook straight towards me. Down he went 
smartly, and another, and another, and likewise 
every one of the seventeen young rooks that were 
in that clump. The curious thing was that they 
gave me just time to load; never more than two 
came together, and all persisted in flying straight 
towards me, when safety and their birthplace lay in 
the opposite direction. My seventeenth and last 
cartridge accounted for the seventeenth and last 
rook. 
‘What I liked best in my war against vermin was 
a family stoat-hunt. In this I was of the same 
mind as an old keeper whom I had known ever 
since I was old enough to get into mischief. This 
old fellow told me he would walk ten miles any day 
to.‘ attend to’ a litter of stoats. I was always 
ready to go with him. Six or seven is the usual 
number of stoats in a litter, though nearly twenty 
have been found, with every indication that all 
belonged to one mother. The most I ever found 
was ten. And there is attached to this litter of ten 
a scrap of history which made their circumvention 
of special interest to me. Through all one shooting 
season I had succeeded in preserving a very beautiful 
silvery-white hen pheasant. Not having seen her 
for many weeks, | naturally was delighted when 
I saw her sitting on one of the nests I found at the 
end of May. All went well for a while, till one 
Sunday morning, when I went to have a look at 
