138 ON SURREY HILLS. 



creeps over the meadows passes away and re- 

 turns again as the currents of warm air pass to and 

 fro. The barn owl beats over the meadows, rises, 

 falls, and screeches as he drops on his prey. Only 

 those who are well acquainted with the vast number 

 of the large -headed, short -tailed field-mouse, or, 

 properly speaking, the field -vole, that large kind 

 that inhabits the moist meadows, can fully appreciate 

 the good done by the owls in the gardens of residents 

 by the river-side. The field-voles become a perfect 

 pest : being vegetable feeders, they eat the peas, 

 bark the wall-fruit stems, gnaw the ground crops, 

 and play general havoc, to say nothing of what other 

 vermin of their sort will do ; and yet owls are shot 

 oh, the pity and stupidity of it ! I have a weakness 

 for owls, having tamed and studied numbers of them 

 for years. Wonderful birds they are, when you come 

 to know them well ; and so little understood that 

 poets still write about "the moping owl," "that ill- 

 omened bird of night," &c. ; and even Shakespeare 

 says, " Out on you, owls ; nothing but songs of 

 death : " not to speak of the ignorance of their nature 

 and habits shown by keepers and farmers who ought 

 to know and to protect them, in their own interests 



