WILD LIFE: FURRED AND FEATHERED. 51 



feed on these as well as on other ill weeds, which is, as one 

 may say, " a stone in the other pocket." Pigeons are very 

 good to eat, and they may be a small source of revenue. 

 Turtle-doves, which, however, are only summer visitors to 

 our islands, and arrive some six weeks later on, are accused 

 too of stealing (?) the farmers' oats ; but in point of fact 

 they are extremely fond of a small vetch that grows plenti- 

 fully at the roots of the oats. As a rule wild pigeons get 

 their living in the woods and from the outskirts only of 

 the fields. 



The brown, tawny, or wood owls hoot in the woods, for 

 this is their nesting season, and you may hear their 

 uncanny cries during the daytime, although you will not 

 easily distinguish the bird, as he will draw himself up 

 closely to the tree-trunk, where he had perched on hearing 

 the step of an intruder ; and his tones of colouring, varied 

 shades of ashen grey, mottled with brown, buffish white, 

 and dark brown streaks, with large spots of white, 

 harmonise so perfectly with the tones of the moss and 

 lichen-covered bark, that the creature is to all intents 

 and purposes invisible. He likes best to build in a hollow 

 in some decayed old tree, pleasantly shadowed over by 

 sprays of ivy. If you are wary and silent in your obser- 

 vations you may catch a glimpse of him as' he settles on a 

 shallow of some woodland stream, where he will enjoy 

 a bath to the full, shaking the water out in all direc- 

 tions. The wood owl has the noble trait of constancy 

 in his character, for he is said to mate for life, and the 

 birds return each year to the same hole in the tree to nest. 

 As soon as the first egg is laid they begin to sit, so that 

 young and eggs are to be found together in one nest. 

 Voles, rats, mice, moles, and shrews, form the greater part 



