MAMMALS. 



183 



the Badgers are so numerous as from to along the sides 



of Loch . I could let you see several cairns in which they 



have their dens, and where they live all the year round. It is 

 really very interesting to watch their habits. In my opinion they 

 are very harmless to game, except young rabbits, hence I don't try 

 to exterminate them, and don't allow the under-keepers to set 

 traps at their dens' (in lit. 7th March 1893). 



When trapping Badgers some experienced keepers set the trap 

 on one side, as otherwise the Badger's belly will spring the trap, 

 i.e. if it be placed in the middle of the trail. Others say they 

 rout out the ground with the nose, and so shove the trap away ; 

 but this is no doubt merely a fancy, arising out of a desire to 

 account for repeated failures. They are stated to kill young 

 rabbits, and also to take pheasants' eggs, but not before these 

 are partly incubated. 



Sub-order PINNIPEDIA. 

 Family PHOCID^. 

 Phoca vitulina, Z. Common Seal. 



The Common Seal is very plentiful in the Dornoch and Beauly 

 Firths, some of the sandbanks in the former place being at times 

 quite covered with them. In the Beauly Firth many complaints 

 have been made as to the destruction of the salmon caused by 

 them, but no action seems to have been seriously undertaken to 

 reduce their numbers, and we hope, for all the harm that is done, 

 that no such action will be taken. This small seal is also found 

 at times at the Little Ferry, though it now rarely lies on the sand- 

 banks there, frbhi being constantly shot at; farther south it is 

 much rarer, as it also seems to be in the Cromarty Firth. 



Mr. Donald Gillies,^ now a very old man, but who all his life 

 has had much experience of the ferce naturce of the Highlands, told 

 us that many years ago, when they were rafting timber down the 

 river Oich, he and others siiw seals on one or two occasions on that 

 river. Even yet, they, though rarely, ascend the river as far 

 almost as the Bishop's Bridge. 



^ Donald Gillies is a native of Glengarry, but was for many years keeper %t 

 Alt-na-harra, Sutherland, where we first met him. 



