166 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



some confidence for the other in the next. Amid 

 summer's babel of music, there might be no reason 

 to single out the linnet's modest twitter as accom- 

 paniment for the champion song of the skies ; but 

 when October comes, and we value bird-song more 

 because it is so rare, then those who wander afield 

 will find the poets justified ; for you may walk miles 

 and hear no other music than the linnet's in the 

 brambles and the lark's among the clouds. 



MORE JUSTIFICATION. 



At this season, too, when the brown owls are 

 driving away their full-grown young, you may hear 

 another justification of the poets. We all know the 

 long-drawn " hoo-hooo " of this hooting owl, but not 

 every one knows the insistent call-note, which sounds 

 like "ke-wick," also uttered by it. Some writers, 

 indeed, have poked fun at the poets for following- 

 my-leader in such blundering fashion as always to re- 

 present a mere hoot by the words " Tu-whit, tu-whoo." 

 Yet when the annual family disturbance of the brown 

 owls takes place, you shall hear a whole wood and the 

 surrounding fields resound with shouts of " Ke-wick," 

 "Hoo-Hooo," and the poets' "Tu-whit, tu-whoo" 

 rises instantly to the mind. There are senseless con- 

 ventions enough in poetry on " nature " subjects ; but 

 that is all the more reason for giving their proper 

 credit to the bards when they tread a beaten path 

 which leads straight to nature. 



