THE TEMPLES OF THE HILLS 275 



of tlic long-carcd owl, this being the only species 1 have 

 met with in tiic temples of the hills. Strange as it may 

 seem to readers who are not intimately 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 out- 

 side 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 w^ild 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 anotlier 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 ahvays out at 

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

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



