206 



HARDWICKE'S 8C IE N CE-GOSS IP. 



" A garden without birds, is like a mansion without 

 inhabitants ! " 



Fig. 145. Black-cap. 



Fig. 146. Stone-chat. 



Fig. 147. Chitr-chaCr. 



Lastly, the book coiickidcs with a chapter de- 

 voted to the " Gardens of various nations," and a 

 general calendar for 1871. But the inexorable limits 

 of space remind us that we have already lingered 

 over a book which cannot fail to charm the natu- 

 ralist and the horticulturist alike, and which has 

 so pleasing, and yet so attractively, described how, 

 v/ith the smallest materials, it is possible to achieve 

 the greatest results. 



"ANOTHER PHARAOH." 



I HAVE long been wishing to send an account of 

 my king of pets to Science-Gossip, and I have 

 now been so effectually stirred up by "M. A. D.'s" 

 charming history of his ancient Majesty "King 

 Pharaoh," that 1 will ask you to insert a short chat 

 concerning one of the same solemn dynasty, even at 

 the risk of seeming to have occasionally copied from 

 the prior history. 



Unlike " Pharaoh," my young owl, fresh from a 

 nest on the pleasant banks of the Wye, was rescued 

 out of pure charity, at the price of twopence half- 

 penny, from some ruthless urchins who had killed its 

 baby-mate (they are generally hatched in couples), 

 and were proceeding to dispatch him also, on the 

 plea that " owls are unlucky " ; and charity proved 

 its own reward, by the fund of amusement the bird 

 has ever since afforded us. 



He looked so grotesquely sad, so hideously ill- 

 proportioned, that we could never look at him for 

 the first week without eclatant de rirc, and he 

 was at once given Mr. Wood's admirable designa- 

 tion, " ovKoc, uviipoq." Unlike "Pharaoh," he never 

 caught a cold in his head, but, curiously like him, he 

 at first shared my bedroom, until his erratic habits 

 at night— padding all about the room as if possessed 

 of heavy human feet — caused him to be banished to 

 the cellar, where he soon chose a dark shelf and 

 " moped supreme " ; like Pharaoh, too, manifesting 

 a great love of climbing stairs, frightening cookey 

 not a little when she met this imp of darkness 

 coming up from the lower regions into her own 

 domains. And he was hideous ! — a shapeless mass 

 of fluff of pepper-and-salt hue, with those great 

 mournful eyes, like a child's bad drawing, or some 

 hisus naturae, that only exists in illustrated books of 

 fairy-tales. But he changed and changed as his 

 feathers grew out, and we watched, as the tadpole 

 did when his tail fell off, aud said " What next ? " 

 Never till now did I understand the compliment a 

 gentleman paid me when I was a little child ; he 

 exclaimed, " You are like the young owls, growing 

 prettier every day." A somewhat doubtful one I 

 feel it now ! 



Owlos had to be fed by cramming at first, and he 

 bked it so much that in his solemn laziness he 

 would never have fed himself at all, had he not been 

 served with a little wholesome neglect in the matter 

 of waiting on him at meals. He is fond of snails 

 for pudding, after his raw meat dinner ; but he will 

 never touch them in winter or early spring, until 

 they have become juicy by fresh green feeding. 



Like " Pharaoh," he looks very picturesque with 

 a mouse in his beautiful, hawk-like, fawn-coloured 

 claw ; but he looks his best when, leisurely holding 

 a long writhing earth-worm, he reminds me of the 

 old picture of Jove's eagle clutching the thunder- 

 bolts. 



He soon became very tame ; his favourite perch 

 was on the top of the drawing-room door, or on the 

 middle frame of the window-sasli, from which he 

 would watch the passers-by in the street for hours, 

 turning his head after them till they were out of 

 sight, and making the most ludicrous succession of 

 bows to them, sometimes describing a circle with 

 his head, raising himself up and down to make it as 

 large as possible. A cracking with his beak was the 

 sign of his grave displeasure, and this Mas invariably 

 bestowed on a peculiarly large chignon, or when 

 any outrageous display of colours in coiffure passed 

 under the window and offended his owlship's stern 

 taste. When tired of moralizing on street proces- 

 sions he would fly back to the drawing-room table, 

 and laying his shock head on the soft cloth, he 

 would watch my work with his great earnest eyes 

 till they gradually closed iu sleep ; or would gently 

 nibble my hair all over, drawing each bit through 



