136 
NATURE NOTES. 
outbreak, would undoubtedly tend to mitigate it, and, as has 
been proved in the case of the short-eared owl, they have the 
faculty of multipl}-ing abnormally in presence of an unusual 
supply of food. They are at all events most useful allies to 
man in combating attacks of ground vermin. The Committee 
further desire to deprecate in the strongest manner possible 
the use of the pole-trap for the capture of hawks. Besides 
the inhumanity of this device, it is indiscriminate, and harmless 
owls, kestrels and buzzards are just as likely to be taken by it 
as are the more mischievous species.” Respecting that inde- 
fatigable little “ farmer’s friend,” the common weasel, the 
following remarks occur : — “ The Committee have no hesitation 
in recommending that weasels, which are persistent mouse- 
hunters, and do little damage to game, should not be molested, 
at least |on moorlands and hill-pastures, where they can do little 
harm and much good.” I have myself seen a weasel swim 
across a brook carrying a large field-vole in his mouth, and 
have found dead ones laid up in his retreat. 
The destruction of owls (not to speak of kestrels) is still far too 
general, and by no means confined to Scotland ; though why it is 
permitted is hard to understand. Two instances occurred only 
last summer to my knowledge, in each of which a whole family 
of young owls were done to death. In the first a nest of young 
barn owls were allowed to remain undisturbed till their plumage 
was considered to be sufficiently advanced, and then taken to 
the bird-stuffers to be killed and stuffed. In the other case a 
family of that beautiful bird, the long-eared owl, hatched in an 
East Suffolk fir plantation, were, I have reason to believe, all 
shot. This species, if protected (as indeed all the British 
owls nominally are), would be far from uncommon in some parts 
of Suffolk, but the young have a habit which too often brings 
about their own destruction. After leaving the nest they sit 
still among the thick foliage of some fir, holly or other tree, 
where, if they did but keep silence, they would be comparatively 
safe ; but as darkness comes on, hunger prompts them to call 
to their parents for food, and long into the night they utter from 
time to time their mournful wailing note, which borne on the 
gentle summer breeze may be heard to a long distance. Too 
often this cry proves to be their own death-knell, for by means 
of it they reveal their whereabouts not only to their anxious 
parents but also to their arch enemy, the keeper, who is thus 
enabled to follow up and murder the whole brood. 
Though the “ vole plague ” has generally been confined to 
certain limits, yet throughout the country, rats and moles have 
of late years been far too numerous, and from the game pre- 
server as well as the farmer owls of all sorts, kestrels, buzzards 
and weasels deserve the strictest protection for keeping down 
one of the worst enemies to game— -the common brown rat. 
G. T. Rope. 
