A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



Just at dusk in the winter nights, I often 

 hear his soft bur-r-r-r, very pleasing and 

 bell-like. What a furtive, woody sound it 

 is in the winter stillness, so unlike the 

 harsh scream of the hawk ! But all the 

 ways of the owl are ways of softness and 

 duskiness. His wings are shod with silence, 

 his plumage is edged with down. 



Another owl neighbor of mine, with whom 

 I pass the time of day more frequently than 

 with the last, lives farther away. I pass 

 his castle every night on my way to the 

 post-office, and in winter, if the hour is late 

 enough, am pretty sure to see him standing 

 in his doorway, surveying the passers-by 

 and the landscape through narrow slits in 

 his eyes. For four successive winters now 

 have I observed him. As the twilight be- 

 gins to deepen, he rises up out of his cavity 

 in the apple-tree, scarcely faster than the 

 moon rises from behind the hill, and sits in 

 the opening, completely framed by its out- 

 lines of gray bark and dead wood, and by 

 his protective coloring virtually invisible to 

 every eye that does not know he is there. 

 Probably my own is the only eye that has 

 ever penetrated his secret, and mine never 

 would have done so had I not chanced on 

 18 



