Hedgehogs are taken in steel traps baited with a pheasant's or a hen's egg. At times squirrels are killed in hundreds, but they do not grace the larder, neither do the spiny hedgehogs. Squirrels bark young trees, especially ash-stoles and holly. Occasionally a creature more rare than the rest adorns the larder. The old keepers remember a white-tailed eagle and a great snowy owl. Sometimes a peregrine is shot, and more rarely, in autumn, a hobby or a goshawk. A miscellaneous row on the vermin rails comprises moles, weasels, and cats. The mole is libelled by being placed there; he is a destroyer of many creatures which are injurious to land. Domestic cats soon revert to a semi-wild state when once they take to the woods, and are terribly destructive in the coverts. They destroy pheasants, partridges, leverets, and rabbits. The life of these wild tabbies is wild indeed. Every dormant instinct is aroused; each movement becomes characteristically feline; and when these creatures revert to life in the woods it is impossible to reclaim them. Climatic influences work remarkable changes upon the fur, causing it to grow longer and thicker; and the cats take up their abode in stony crevasse or hollow tree. In summer, when kittens are produced, the destruction of game is almost incredible. Under the dark slab by the river the otters breed; but it is impossible to dislodge them. Iron-sinewed shaggy otterhounds have tried, but never with success. The fishermen complain of the quantity of fish which the otter destroys. Trout are found dead on the rocks; salmon are there bitten in the shoulder but only partially eaten. CHAPTER XII. HOMELY TRAGEDY. I.