FOREST TITHES 21 
of that hedge bottom. Two brown owls are beating 
over the field in quest of rats and mice, no matter 
which ; the first that can be got at lives but a very 
few moments after it is gripped and bitten through 
the back of the neck. Their hunt, this beat, has been 
useless ; they flit over the adjacent fir-trees and for a 
time become invisible to us. One by one, by threes 
and twos, out come the rats again ; the owls are not 
overhead, so some venture out a longer distance from 
the hedge. Presently we hear a rare scamper and 
some squeaking, for the owls have changed their 
tactics. They have come down the side of the hedge 
this time, and flapped again into the fir-woods, each 
with a rat in his grip. A very fortunate matter it is 
for the owls that no one in a velveteen jacket and 
carrying a double-barrelled gun is at hand, or their 
spread-eagled forms might have ornamented the gable 
end of a dog-kennel next morning. One of these 
gentlemen, to whom I lately appealed for their pro- 
tection, replied, ' I ain't sin 'em do what some says 
they will do ; but I kills 'em when I has the chance, 
to keep 'em from doin' of it.' 
When will things be set right in these directions ? I 
often wonder. I have seen the inside of wheat-stacks 
eaten out, befouled, and ruined by rats and mice ; and 
still owls are killed and farm-labourers are rewarded 
