THE GREAT HORNED OWL 225 



savage hunger must be sated, and while he seems to 

 reject nothing that has life, the perching birds arc his 

 most frequent victims ♦ Even in winter he grows fat 

 through ceaseless depredations* To see him flying 

 at night across the disk of the full moon, his silent 

 wings sweeping through the naked branches of an 

 Elm, is an event to be remembered — even more rare 

 than a daylight meeting, face to face, in the dose 

 shade of a Cedar swamp* His tremulous monotone 

 is the true voice of the woods* Weird it may be, 

 repeated again and again, expressive in its expression- 

 less evenness, and so oppressively spiritless that it 

 seems to breathe a pulsating spirit through the silence 

 that it cannot disturbs 



