io6 Our Bird Friends. 



promptly dashed at it and knocked it over. It was 

 a stutied one I had had given to nie, and I put 

 it there to hear what the angry Miss-el Thrush 

 would say. She soon had her husband by her side, 

 and they and a couple of Blackbirds and a Wren 

 or two said the most dreadful things about Owls 

 and all their kindred that I ever heard in my life. 



Owls, in their turn, are not slow to defend their 

 helpless children, and the Tawny species sometimes 

 sujiplies such fierce examples that ladies and child- 

 ren fear to go anywhere near their (punters after 

 the dusk of evening has fallen. One such bird 

 lived close to a village in the Eastern counties of 

 England not long ago, and went so far as to carry 

 oif men's caps, bury its talons in the scalps of 

 innocent wayfarers, and commit other outrages which 

 rendered it such a terror that it had to be shot. 



The size of a bird counts for little in a passage 

 of arms, especially in mid-air : for I have seen a 

 plucky little Ringed Dotterel drive a great hulking 

 Seagull away from the neighbourhood of her 

 children — which he would have been very glad to 

 swallow one by one — by rushing up beneath and 

 behind him and pecking vigorously between his 

 legs. The Gull simply tore off for his life, and 

 yelled as he flew in abject terror of his wee 

 assailant. 



The Rook sometimes chases the great Heron 

 about and laughs at his cowardice ; but the sable 

 gentleman, in his turn, cannot stand the dashing 



