78 A HISTORY OF 



among each other, and hunt in concert. Upon the returning season 

 of courtship this union is at an end, the family parts for ever, each to 

 establish a little household of its own. It is easy to distinguish these 

 birds at a distance, not only from their going in companies, but also 

 from their manner of flying, which is always up and down, seldom di- 

 rect or side-ways. 



Of these birds there are three or four different kinds; but the 

 greater ash-coloured butcher-bird is the least known among us. The 

 red-backed butcher-bird migrates in autumn, and does not return till 

 spring, the wood-chat resembles the former, except in the colour of 

 ts back, which is brown, and not red as in the other. There is still 

 another, less than either of the former, found in the marshes near 

 London. This too, is a bird of prey, although not much bigger than 

 a titmouse ; an evident proof that an animal's courage or rapa- 

 city does not depend upon its size. Of foreign birds of this kind, 

 there are several ; but as we know little of their manner of living, we 

 will not, instead of history, substitute mere description. In fact, the 

 colours of a bird, which is all we know of them, would afford a read- 

 er but small entertaiment in the enumeration. Nothing can be more 

 easy than to fill volumes with the different shades of a bird's plumage ; 

 but these accounts are written with more pleasure than they are read ; 

 and a single glance of a good plate or a picture imprints a juster idea 

 than a volume could convey. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OF RAPACIOUS BIRDS OF THE OWL KIND THAT PREY BY NIGHT. 



HITHERTO we have been describing a tribe of animals who, 

 though plunderers among their fellows of the air, yet wage war bold- 

 ly in the face of day. We now come to a race equally cruel and ra- 

 pacious ; but who add to their savage disposition the further reproach 

 of treachery, and carry on all their depredations by night. 



All birds of the owl kind may be considered as nocturnal robbers, 

 who, unfitted for taking their prey while it is light, surprise it at those 

 hours of rest when the tribes of Nature are in the least expectation of 

 an enemy. Thus there seems no link in Nature's chain broken ; 

 no where a dead inactive repose ; but every place, every season, every 

 hour of the day and night, is bustling with life, and furnishing in- 

 stances of industry, self-defence, and invasion. 



All birds of the owl kind have one common mark by which they 

 are distinguished from others ; their eyes are formed for seeing better 

 in the dusk than in the broad glare of sun-shine. As in the eyes of 

 t-he tigers and cats, that are formed for a life of nocturnal depreda- 

 tion, there is a quality in the retina that takes in the rays of light so 

 copiously as to permit their seeing in places almost quite dark ; so in 



