THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER 21 



Among the singers in the July gloaming, one alone, 

 were he able to vary his notes, could vie with the Toad's 

 harmonious bells. This is the little Scops-owl, that 

 comely nocturnal bird of prey, with the round gold eyes. 

 He sports on his forehead two small feathered horns 

 which have won for him in the district the name of 

 Machoto banarudo, the Horned Owl. His song, which 

 is rich enough to fill by itself the still night air, is of a 

 nerve-shattering monotony. With imperturbable and 

 measured regularity, for hours on end, kew, kew, the bird 

 spits out its cantata to the moon. 



One of them has arrived at this moment, driven from 

 the plane-trees in the square by the din of the rejoicings, 

 to demand my hospitality. I can hear him in the top 

 of a cypress near by. From up there, dominating the 

 lyrical assembly, at regular intervals he cuts into the 

 vague orchestration of the Grasshoppers and the Toads. 



His soft note is contrasted, intermittently, with a sort 

 of Cat's mew, coming from another spot. This is the 

 call of the Common Owl, the meditative bird of Minerva. 

 After hiding all day in the seclusion of a hollow olive- 

 tree, he started on his wanderings when the shades of 

 evening began to fall. Swinging along with a sinuous 

 flight, he came from somewhere in the neighborhood to 

 the pines in my enclosure, whence he mingles his harsh 

 mewing, slightly softened by distance, with the general 

 concert. 



The Green Grasshopper's clicking is too faint to be 

 clearly perceived amidst these clamorers ; all that reaches 

 me is the least ripple, just noticeable when there is a mo- 



