Short sketches of the wild sports and natural history of the Highlands / From the journals of Charles St. John, esq.

  • Charles William George St John
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Short sketches of the wild sports and natural history of the Highlands / From the journals of Charles St. John, esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    apt to follow a careless exposure of oneself to cold and heat, at all hours of night and day. Though by habit and repute a being strongly endowed with the organ of destructiveness, I take equal delight in collecting round me all living animals, and watching their habits and instincts; my abode is, in short, a miniature menagerie. My dogs learn to respect the persons of domesticated wild animals of all kinds, and my pointers live in amity with tame partridges and pheasants; my retrievers lounge about amidst my wild-fowl, and my terriers and beagles strike up friendship with the animals of different kinds whose capture they have assisted in, and with whose relatives they are ready to wage war to the death. A common and well kept truce exists with one and all. My boys, who are of the most bird-nesting age (eight and nine years old), instead of disturbing the num- berless birds who breed in the garden and shrubberies, in full confidence of protection and immunity from all danger of gun or snare, strike up an acquaintance with every family of chaffinches or blackbirds who breed in the place, visiting every nest, and watching over the eggs and young with a most parental care. My principal aide-de-camp in my sporting excursions is an old man, who, although passing for somewhat of a simpleton, has more acuteness and method in his vagaries than most of his neighbours. For many years he seems to have lived on his gun, but with an utter contempt of, and animosity against, all those who employ the more ignoble means of snaring and trapping game ; and this makes him fulfil his duty as keeper better than many persons trained regularly to that employment. He is rather a peculiar person in his way, and has a natural tendency to the pursuit of the rarer and wilder animals, such as otters, seals, wild-fowl, &c.—which accords well with my own tastes in the sporting line—many a day, and many a night too, at all seasons, has he passed lying in wait for some seal or otter, regardless of wet or cold. His neighbours, though all allowing that he was a most in- veterate poacher, always gave him credit for a great deal of simple honesty in other things. So one day, having caught him in a ditch waiting for wild ducks, on my shooting- grounds, instead of prosecuting, I took him into my service, where he has now remained for some years ; and though he some-
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