120 HISTORY OF 



their wings, and are ready to show their courage 

 to be great, as they are sensible that their danger 

 is but small. The unfortunate owl, not knowing 

 where to attack or where to fly, patiently sits 

 and suffers all their insults. Astonished and 

 dizzy, he only replies to their mockeries by 

 awkward and ridiculous gestures, by turning his 

 head, and rolling his eyes with an air of stupi- 

 dity. It is enough that an owl appears by day 

 to set the whole grove into a kind of uproar. 

 Either the aversion all the small birds have to this 

 animal, or the consciousness of their own secu- 

 rity, makes them pursue him without ceasing, 

 while they encourage each other by their mutual 

 cries to lend assistance in this laudable under- 

 taking. 



It sometimes happens, however, that the little 

 birds pursue their insults with the same imprudent 

 zeal with which the owl himself had pursued his 

 depredations. They hunt him the whole day 

 until evening returns, which restoring him his 

 faculties of sight once more, he makes the fore- 

 most of his pursuers pay dear for their former 

 sport. Nor is man always an unconcerned spec- 

 tator here. The bird-catchers have got an art of 

 counterfeiting the cry of the owl exactly ; and, 

 having before limed the branches of a hedge, they 

 sit unseen and give the call. At this, all the 

 little birds flock to the place where they expect 

 to find their well-known enemy ; but instead of 

 finding their stupid antagonist, they are stuck 

 fast to the hedge themselves. This sport must 

 be put in practice an hour before night-fall, in 



