THE TEMPLES OF THE HILLS 269 



species I have met with in the temples of the hills. 

 Strange as it may seem to readers who are not in- 

 timately acquainted with this bird, I was able to see 

 it even more clearly than the sparrow-hawk in the 

 full blaze of noonday. The binocular was not required. 

 There were five of them — two old and three young 

 birds — and it was their habit to spend the daylight 

 hours sitting in a bush just outside the grove. After 

 discovering their haunt I was able to find them on 

 most days, and one day had a rare spectacle when I 

 came upon the whole family, two in one bush and 

 three sitting close together in another. I stood for 

 some time, less than a dozen yards from these three, 

 as they sat side by side on a dead branch in the 

 hollow of a furze-bush, its spiny roof above them, 

 but the cavity on my side. I gazed at them, three 

 feathered wild cats, very richly coloured with the 

 sun shining full on them, their long black narrow 

 ears erect in astonishment, while they stared back 

 at me out of three pairs of round luminous orange- 

 yellow eyes. By-and-by, getting nervous at my 

 presence, they flung themselves out, and, flying to 

 a distance of twenty or thirty yards, settled down 

 in another bush. 



I had another delightful experience with long-eared 

 owls at another of the downland groves about fifteen 

 miles distant from the last. Here, too, it was a family 

 — the parents and two young birds. I could not find 

 them in the day-time; but they were always out at 

 sunset, the young crying to be fed, the parents gliding 

 to and fro, but not yet leaving the shadow of the 



