NOVEMBER. 177 



will not permit their children to nest close by the 

 place where they were born, because the food supply 

 would soon be exhausted if the number of broods 

 raised upon one piece of water were not strictly 

 limited. 



A VENTRILOQUIAL BIRD. 



Another British owl, the long-eared owl, is much 

 commoner than most people think ; for there is 

 probably no dark pine wood in the country where it 

 does not live. It is a very silent and secretive bird, 

 however, so there is some excuse for the general 

 belief in its rarity, and for the apparent ignorance of 

 the naturalists who write books as to its voice. This 

 is curiously ventriloquial. If you chance to be in a 

 pine wood after dusk you may hear the mysterious 

 note, " Hook, hook," coming apparently from a 

 distance, like the baying of a dog two fields ahead 

 of you ; and then, when you have only passed to 

 the other side of the next tree, you may hear it 

 apparently two fields behind you. And all the while 

 the owl is in the tree almost above your head, sitting 

 close to the trunk among the topmost branches, and 

 staring down at you with the bright yellow eyes and 

 pricked-up ear tufts that make him look so strangely 

 like a feathered cat. 



SUMMER LINGERS. 



November 13. When the roses of June and the 

 dahlias of September are still in full bloom, with the 

 chrysanthemums of late autumn, one need not remark 



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