6o ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



overhead, cawing loudly for a minute or two before 

 settling down again. 



I concluded that it was some creature dangerous to 

 birds, probably a fox, prowling about among the trees 

 and creating an alarm whenever they caught sight of 

 him ; but though I watched for an hour I could detect 

 nothing. 



On the third evening the disturbance was more wide- 

 spread and persistent than usual, until the birds could 

 endure it no longer. The cawing storms had been 

 breaking out at various spots over an area of many acres 

 of wood, when at length the whole vast concourse rose 

 up and continued hovering and flying about for fifteen 

 or twenty minutes, then settled once more on the top- 

 most branches of the pines. Seen from the ridge on a 

 level with the top of the wood the birds presented a 

 strange sight, perched in hundreds, sitting upright and 

 motionless, looking intensely black on the black tree- 

 tops against the pale evening sky. By-and-by, as I stood 

 in a green drive in the midst of the roosting-place, a 

 fresh tempest of alarm broke out at some distance and 

 travelled towards me, causing the birds to rise; and 

 suddenly the disturber appeared, gliding noiselessly near 

 the ground with many quick doul^lings among the boles 

 — a barn owl, looking strangely white among the black 

 trees! A little later there was a general rising of the 

 entire multitude with a great uproar; they were unable 

 to stand the appearance of that mysterious bird-shaped 

 white creature gliding about under their roosting-trces 

 an^ longer. For a minute or two the^ hovered over- 



