NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 49 



these birds with my watch for an hour together, and have 

 found that they return to their nest, the one or the other 

 of them, about once in five minutes ; reflecting at the 

 same time on the adroitness that every animal is possessed 

 of as far as regards the well-being of itself and offspring. 

 But a piece of address, which they show when they return 

 loaded, should not, I think, be passed over in silence. As 

 they take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in 

 their claws to their nest ; but, as the feet are necessary in 

 their ascent under the tiles, they constantly perch first on 

 the roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse from their 

 claws to their bill, that their feet may be at liberty to take 

 hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the 

 eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to 

 hoot at all ; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to 

 come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed 

 snore and hiss in a tremendous manner ; and these menaces 

 well answer the intention of intimidating ; for I have known 

 a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining 

 the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres. White 

 owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from this 

 screaming probably arose the common people's imaginary 

 species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think 

 attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage of 

 the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I 

 have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps 

 it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should 

 not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be 

 enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble 

 and watchful quarry. 



While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to 

 mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of 

 Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash 

 that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he dis- 

 covered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he 

 could not account for. After some examination he found 

 that it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps 



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