272 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



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 outside 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 wild 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 

 another 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 always out at 

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

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

 trees. I went at the same hour on several evenings to 

 watch them and experience pleasing little thrills. I 

 would station myself in the middle of the grove and 

 stand motionless against one of the tall pines, while the 



