THE TEMPLES OF THE HILLS 273 



two young birds would fly backwards and forwards 

 from end to end of the grove perching at intervals 

 to call in their catty voices, and then resume their 

 exercises. By-and-by a sudden puff of air would fan 

 my cheek or it would be slightly brushed with feather- 

 ends, and an owl would sweep by. This trick they 

 would repeat again and again, always flying at my head 

 from behind ; and so noiseless was the flight that I 

 could never tell that the bird was coming until it 

 actually touched or almost touched me in passing. 

 These were indeed the most ghostlike owls I had ever 

 encountered ; and they had no fear of the human 

 form, though it evidently excited their curiosity and 

 suspicion, and no knowledge of man's deadly power : 

 for this grove, too, stood on land owned by the person 

 who farmed it, and he was his own gamekeeper. 



Thinking on my experience with these owls in an 

 unprotected clump in Wiltshire, it occurred to me that 

 owls of different species, where these birds are not 

 persecuted, are apt to indulge in this same habit or 

 trick, almost of the nature of a practical joke, of flying 

 at you from behind and dashing close to your face to 

 startle you. I remembered that in my early years, in 

 a distant land where that world-ranging species, the 

 short-eared owl, was common, I had often been made 

 to jump by this bird. 



It is sad to reflect that the few clumps which form 



bird refuges such as the one described — small oases of 



wild life in the midst of a district where all the most 



interesting species are ruthlessly extirpated — are never 



18 



