86 Idylls of the Field. 



in one of the tall elms on the edge of the meadow, 

 startles the stillness with his mellow call. 



To the owlet spreading for the first time his downy 

 wings to leave the shelter of his home, the outer 

 world is altogether strange and new. 



Ever, indeed, will he look upon the landscape with 

 other eyes than ours. For him the shadow goes 

 backward on the dial. The fire of sunset is to him 

 the light of dawn ; his day, the silent hours of night 

 lit with cold stars or keen full moon. 



Some birds there are who early in their young 

 experience learn something of the stir of life. Young 

 kingfishers, hatched in the darkness of their tunnel, 

 come to the entrance and look out long before their 

 wings are grown. They grow familiar with the hum of 

 the mill and the dreamy plash of the old wheel, they 

 watch the play of ripples round the stones, they see 

 the cloud of minnows dart like arrows up the 

 stream. 



But to the young jackdaws in the tower the world 

 at present means no more than a grim Norman wall, 

 a brief stretch of narrow, time-worn stair, a single 

 gleam of daylight overhead. 



The whole ascent is strewn with piles of sticks and 

 heather. Above the belfry, the way is blocked en- 

 tirely by the great nests that the old birds have heaped 

 even four feet high upon the ancient steps. 



And now the time approaches when the dark-coated 

 nestlings begin to scramble off their nests, and 



