SPRING PROPHETS 



FOR weeks past the " Tu whit " and the " Tu whoo " 

 of the brown owls have told their love- 

 The story. Courting rites begin with the new 



Moping year, and some pairs are now nesting. The 

 Owls head of the family will call for a long time 



on end after a set fashion, from one tree: 

 first uttering a long, single hoot, then, after a pause, 

 running ten or twelve " hoohs " together into one 

 long-drawn, bubbling note, and again, after another 

 pause, uttering the trumpet-like call. One owl answers 

 another like an echo ; so that a benighted wayfarer may 

 be cheered by their mellow hootings all the way home. 



THE owl called " little " is famed for its varied reper- 

 toire of notes, of mewing, barking, and 

 The Little bleating sort, and for a cry like the dis- 

 Owl tressful voice of a rabbit in a snare ; but it 



has also a long-drawn love-call of musical 

 quality. The four or five white eggs are laid in all sorts 

 of situations besides holes in trees; one little owl we 

 know has laid for two seasons under an overturned 

 sheep-trough, and another favoured a rabbit's burrow 

 until the rabbits turned crusty. The gamekeeper much 

 mistrusts these quaintest of owls; one of which, for 

 any crimes it may have committed against other birds, 

 lately paid the supreme penalty when a sparrow-hawk 

 selected it for its dinner. 



Now the blackbird whistles again, in his lazy way bar 

 upon bar of flute-like music. When singing 

 The thus early he pays a rare compliment to the 



Mellow Clerk of the Weather. Most good judges 

 Merle find that in quality his note excels the 



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