1 64 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



and this time at a glance saw what that semblance 

 of a crooked bit of furze stem really was. Two 

 young fern-owls about three days old were there; 

 they squatted in the hot sunshine, looking most 

 curious creatures, covered with down and long 

 hair-like bristles, patched and spotted with dingy 

 brown, dirty yellowish-grey, and stone colour, in 

 exact mimicry of their resting-place; the bristles 

 round their young gapes were very thick. 



They knew instinctively that some strange crea- 

 ture was looking down on them, and they crouched, 

 keeping their crooked position, lower down in the 

 slight depression which their movements or their 

 mother had made in the dry needles, till they 

 looked more like a bit of crooked dry stem than ever. 



Leaving them, I made a slight circuit to find 

 the mother, which did not take me long to do, 

 for she was in the road squatting, with trailed 

 wing and outspread tail, looking like a grey stone. 

 " Chack, chack ! " she cried, as loud and as dis- 

 tinctly as any fieldfare, with short beats of her 

 wings held downwards. Never at any time were 

 they raised as they are in the ordinary flight of 

 the bird; her tail also was inclined, and spread 



