CHAPTER III 



THE DUSK AND THE STARLIGHT 



(Brown Owl, Barn Owl, Long-Eared Owl, Short- 

 Eared Owl, Little Owl, Fern Owl) 



" St. Agnes* Eve 1 ah ! bitter chill it was : 

 The owl, for all his feathers, was acold ; 

 The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, 

 And silent was the flock in woolly fold." 



OUR poets seem to have been sadly lacking in a proper 

 knowledge of the ways of owls, but at all events 

 Keats was evidently aware that owls, in spite of all 

 their feathers, are no better able to resist the terrors of 

 cold than are other birds which may not be so warmly 

 clad. During an extreme cold snap a few years ago I 

 came across a barn owl so weak that it could only just 

 manage to flap from one willow to the next along the river 

 margin, and on another occasion I found a long-eared owl 

 lying dead with head upheld on a gravel bank after a 

 severe frost. This bird was not starved, and had, 

 apparently, succumbed solely to the cold. From these 

 facts I am perhaps justified in concluding that, with the 

 exception of the short-eared owl, these birds are rather 

 delicate and unusually sensitive to cold. 



A good deal has been written about the feathers of 

 the owl, which enable him to fly with such muffled flight 

 that he can surprise his quarry lurking in the grass. It 

 has often occurred to me, however, that the silence of 

 the owl's flight is to enable the bird itself to hear, rather 

 than to prevent others from hearing it. In his hunting 



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