WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



golden as it waves in the breeze, until there 

 comes a morning when the rattle and roar of 

 machinery in the field tells that the reaper-and- 

 binder is at work. Soon the yellow forest, 

 which towered so high above the mice that ran 

 between its stems, is cut, and lies bound in neat 

 sheaves in orderly rows across the field. The 

 world of the long-tailed mice is changed, light 

 floods in where but a short time before was 

 shade and safety from hawk and owl. It is 

 the latter which is to be feared most, for the 

 long-tailed field mice, being creatures of the 

 dark, are not, as a rule, out when the kestrel 

 is hovering overhead. But the birds of the 

 night take their toll : as the dusk falls the barn 

 owl floats by on silent ghostly wing, beating 

 this way and that across the stubble, so that 

 little escapes its wonderful eyes. It is as 

 noiseless as thistle-down blown before the 

 wind, and as watchful as the best of cats. 

 Should a mouse dash across from one stook to 

 another, if one creeps out to pick up some 

 grain, then the barn owl drops, falling to the 

 ground with open wings, more like a kite of 

 which the string has broken than a bird of 

 prey stooping at its victim, but beneath that 

 spread of downy wings a mouse is kicking its 

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