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Aubyn Trevor-Battye—The Cry of Oicls



Let us take an analogy from human experience—Death. Man

looks always out upon death ; it will come to him “ some day ” ; it will

come in old age, the normal and inevitable end. But how seldom does

he picture it as coming earlier, sudden and unexpected, to himself !

Others have bad luck, there are accidents and so forth, but it is a million

to one chance, he thinks, so he just goes along and hopes for the best.

When the sword hangs always above the reveller, the banquet will go

merrily in spite of it. Rabbits will run playing round a fox. (“ Some¬

one will have to go presently, but it won’t be me.” And then there

is a bound and a snap and it just is— him !)


And so with the birds and Voles; they, too, are fatalists. The

Starling sleeps peacefully, the Vole goes on with his nightly pursuits,

though the woods are ringing with the hooting of Tawny Owls, and

Barn Owls are quartering the meadow.


Mice and Voles do not remain motionless for long, nor do they

squat (or “ freeze ” to use Mr. Banks’ word) ; but, if they did, a noise

behind them would not make them run, for creatures that assume

this practical habit remain perfectly still until all but trodden on, so

long as they believe they are not seen.


The summer before last I noticed a Water-rail squatting in a cup¬

shaped hollow among some watercress. It would not move, though

I clapped my hands and tried to make it go. Then I picked up a light

stick and dropped it down so that it lay across the cup, supported

by watercress, and about 2 inches above the Rail. The bird never

moved. I withdrew for about ten paces and watched. The bird

could see me and did not move. Going away out of sight I waited

for, perhaps, three or four minutes, and then went back. The Water-

rail was gone ; it had crept out from beneath the stick, and this still

lay exactly as I had placed it.


No one who has watched a Tawny Owl as it sits on a bough listening,

and then goes straight off to its quarry, no one who has examined the

structure of a Barn Owl’s external ear can doubt that these birds

hunt more by hearing than by sight. And in another genus, that of

Asio, the ear is yet more remarkably developed.


" In Asio, containing the Long-eared and Short-eared Owls of

Europe, Asia, and America, the conch is enormously exaggerated,



