As Evening Darkens. 65 



and furrowed trunk is a great hollow worn by the wind 

 and the rain ot many winters, me fastness of the 

 owl. 



Here, on dry fragments of rotten wood are laid each 

 spring the round white eggs. 



Here, eacn evening the old birds come out and hunt 

 in the gloaming, and answer the calls of their friends 

 and neighbours from all the country round. 



The screech of the barn-owl is a weird and awful 

 sound, like the scream of a murdered child. Coming 

 suddenly down out of the dark overhead, it is enough 

 to appal the stoutest heart. 



But there is no terror in the musical call of the 

 brown owl, heard in the soft twilight as it floats down 

 from the coppice on the hill, from the tall elms on the 

 edge of the meadow, or in the dark shadows of the 

 sombre pines. In answer to some far-off call, there 

 comes at intervals his soft halloo, now from yonder 

 tree, now overhead a wandering voice, the phantom 

 cry of a bird unseen in the darkness. 



