Wild Sport in the Outer Hebrides. By C. V. A.
Peel. (F. E. Robinson and Co. 7s. 6d.)—Mr. Peel, who has already told us about big-game shooting in Somaliland, now takes us to the Laws, to Dist, North and South, and to other parts of what is sometimes called the Long Island, a chain of broken land reach- ing some hundred and thirty miles from the Butt of Lews to Barra Head. It will be interesting to any sportsman or orni- thologist., and particularly so to those who may have known these regions many years ago, as is the case with the writer of this notice. One thing is noticeably curious,—the changes in the distribution of animal life. Forty years ago woodcock were very common in the Lews, thirty or more sometimes falling in a day to a single gun. Mr. Peel writes, in reference to the "nineties," "our bag in the Lews one season did not contain a single cock." Why is this ? The population of the Laws has probably increased in the last half-century, but it is still sparse, not more than forty, we should suppose, to the square mile, and the birds can- not be much persecuted; all the less so as they are migratory. There must be vast regions where they would be unmolested; yet for some reason they have ceased to come to the island.
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