Llll.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



14) 



and small inelosures for them, which seem to be their only food. 

 In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see 

 them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, often dropping down 

 in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch 

 for an hour together, and have found that they return to their 

 nest, the one or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; 

 reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal 

 is possessed of as far as regards the well-being of itself and 

 offspring. But a piece of address which they show when they 

 return loaded should not, I think, be passed over in silence. 

 As they take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in 

 their claws to their nest : but as the feet are necessary in their 

 ascent under the tiles, they constantly perch first on the roof of 

 the chancel, and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, 

 that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on 

 the wall as they are rising under the eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot 

 at all : all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from 

 the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in 

 a tremendous manner ; and these menaces will answer the inten- 

 tion of intimidating : for I have known a whole village up in 

 arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-yard to be full 

 of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly 

 as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the com- 

 mon people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they 

 superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. 

 The plumage of the reiniges of the wings of every species of owl 

 that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps 

 it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not 

 make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to 

 steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry. 



While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to 

 mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. 

 As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been 

 the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom, 

 a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After 

 some examination, he found that it was the congeries of the 

 bones of mice, and perhaps of birds and bats, that had been 



