126 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



with softly-hitting wing. Next moment, however, 

 with surprising suddenness both will cease their 

 horse-play and drop earthwards, descending in 

 nearly a straight line : their headlong rush is only 

 checked a few feet before they gently alight. 



It is one of the joys of the moorland to watch 

 a pair of these Owls hunting. They do not hunt 

 all day, however, even when a large and hungry 

 family anxiously await their return with prey ; 

 but, of course, the larger and lustier their progeny 

 become, the more are their parents' endeavours 

 unremitting. Rising softly like fluffy phantoms 

 yet phantoms alertly alive and each one taking a 

 different course, though frequently not very far 

 apart, they begin quartering the limitless moorland 

 usually the slopes and valleys of it, seldom the 

 summits. Their flight is low and perfectly silent, 

 and they proceed alternately by flying and gliding. 

 So gentle is their every movement, so dreamily 

 active are they, that they appear to be governed 

 by no exertion of their own. It seems, in fact, 

 as if they have made a temporary, unconditional 

 truce with the wind, and they resemble nothing 

 so much as enormous tufts of sandy thistle-down 

 purposely propelled by the breeze. Occasionally, 

 however, they move w r ith greater energy, especially 

 when turning abruptly as they often will as 

 though they felt that their previously slow pro- 

 gression might hardly lend them sufficient strength 

 to carry them round on the backward trail. 



