THE GAMEKEEPER AND HIS GOLGOTHA. 99 



a poor show of birds may be the result when 

 October comes round, whereby the Keeper's re- 

 putation suffers. Even the audacious Pies will 

 steal pheasant and partridge chicks ; but the 

 Shrike or Butcher-bird does little harm, as its 

 shambles on the blackthorns prove. 



One of the rails is wholly occupied b}' Owls — 

 white Barn-Owls, brown Wood-Owls, and one of 

 the Short-eared species. The first haunts ruined 

 buildings, the second the dark and sombre 

 depths of woods. There is little justification 

 for any of the birds being here, except that 

 now and again the Wood-Owl may perhaps 

 snap up a young rabbit, a leveret, or a small 

 bird. But even this is rare, and when developed 

 is more an individual trait than a character- 

 istic of the species. The Short-eared Owl occa- 

 sionally kills young grouse on the moors or 

 mosses where it breeds ; but birds and insects 

 are its usual prey. 



Upon one occasion we were ferreting in a 

 dark pine-wood, the floor of which was every- 

 where tunnelled with rabbit burrows. Into 

 one of these a polecat ferret was turned, when 

 there appeared hissing at its mouth an in- 

 flated bunch of feathers set off by a pair of 



