THE GREAT HORNED OWL 225 



savage hunger must be sated, and while he seems to 

 reject nothing that has life, the perching birds are his 

 most frequent victims. Even in winter he grows fat 

 through ceaseless depredations. To see him flying 

 at night across the disk of the full moon, his silent 

 wings sweeping through the naked branches of an 

 Elm, is an event to be remembered even more rare 

 than a daylight meeting, face to face, in the close 

 shade of a Cedar swamp. His tremulous monotone 

 is the true voice of the woods. Weird it may be, 

 repeated again and again, expressive in its expression- 

 less evenness, and so oppressively spiritless that it 

 seems to breathe a pulsating spirit through the silence 

 that it cannot disturb* 



