UNDER GREEN LEAVES 47 
By the way, never look at preserved specimens 
when you can study the live bird. I have seen 
owls preserved so as to show three toes in front 
and one behind, and, though this is quite wrong, 
some works which the credulous public have been 
gulled into considering as standard works have also 
represented them in the same way : that is, in an 
impossible position. No owl that ever I possessed 
and I have kept a goodly number ever placed 
three toes in front and one behind, although they 
could do this for a moment if they chose. Another 
blunder I must protest against : no owl seizes his 
prey or holds it with both feet, though both feet may 
be used to carry it when the prey is a large one ; 
such quarry, for instance, as a full-grown rat, or at 
times a pinwire dotter, called by courtesy a rabbit. 
With one foot the owl grasps his prey, the other foot 
grasps a tuft or some other inequality of the ground. 
Then the bird goes to work. 
A few owls remain in the wood through which I 
am leading my readers ; some of the long-eared 
species, but not many, because when this particular 
piece of land was let for shooting, a few years back, 
an order to destroy all creatures that were not game 
was given. This applied to the utmost limits of the 
shooting, so that the head of game should count out 
