192 THE PLOUGHING 



may be heard the night through in the neighbourhood 

 of the nest. There they perch beneath the dark 

 eaves, appearing snow-white in the uncertain light 

 from a lamp at the cross-roads, and calling now in 

 one direction, now in another, for unlimited mice. 

 The sound is like a breathing snore as distinguished 

 from a snorting or roaring one, delivered at times 

 with vehement insistence, as by one snoring for 

 profit rather than pleasure. Weird and uncanny as 

 are the sight and sound of the Screech-owl in the 

 darkness and stillness of night, they lose their terror 

 when the birds are seen in the grey dawn still 

 perching in their places, and calling for more supper 

 at the opening of another day. 



It is pleasant to see this bird thus tolerated in 

 house and homestead. Time was when ignorance 

 and superstition gave the Screech-owl short shrift ; 

 and the farmer especially, with the narrow bigotry of 

 his kind, made away with it at every turn. He has 

 slowly learned that Owl and Kestrel are self-supporting 

 members of the farm staff, and that their very 

 existence depends upon the continuous destruction 

 of the vermin upon which they feed almost 

 exclusively. 



I begin to be sorry for my friend with the bill-hook. 

 He is, after all, only the instrument of civilisation ; 

 he is not civilised himself. Besides, when two men 

 have been in the same ditch, a certain fellow-feeling 

 grows up between them. I could have warned him, 

 when working along the main ditch, that there was a 

 cross-ditch thatched with thick growth springing 

 apparently from solid ground ; but the sight of his 

 bill-hook hardened my heart. I said, "Let him hew 



