THE LITTLE OWL 39 



they obtained large numbers of these owls, and 

 liberated them in the hope that they would breed 

 and multiply. Their hopes have been more than 

 justified, for they did at once settle down and 

 increase ; they passed first from the county they 

 were liberated in to the adjoining county of 

 Huntingdon ; then, spreading over that, they ex- 

 tended their area into Cambridgeshire, then on 

 into Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk. Every one was 

 at first delighted, and keepers were given strict 

 injunctions on no account to worry the new- 

 comers ; but gradually the keepers' faces began to 

 get long, and first one and then another reported 

 strange stories of depleted coops shortly after the 

 foster-hen was put out into the open with her 

 family of ten or more young birds. Ornithologists 

 were scandalised at these stories — an owl take a 

 young game-bird : impossible ! — but what is im- 

 possible in the eyes of men of science has turned 

 out to be a fact, and this charming-looking Little 

 Owl is found to be one of the worst vermin on 

 the whole list which vexes the soul of the game 

 preserver. For it is just this, that at the very 

 time the young pheasants or hand-reared partridges 

 are put out, the Little Owl has its own little 

 family to feed ; the foster-mother, the hen, being 



