OCTOBER 245 



XLI 



The advocate of an unpopular cause must be prepared 

 to suffer for righteousness' sake, and I am not 

 surprised that the plea which I have made 

 from time to time in favour of an oppressed class of my 

 fellow-creatures the owls, to wit (no pun intended) 

 should have earned for me some uncomplimentary epithets 

 from the disciples of use and wont. Next to the Agnus 

 Dei, the most moving appeal in the Litany is that which 

 recites what ' we have heard with our ears and our fathers 

 have declared unto us.' Nevertheless, with due reverence 

 be it spoken, in lay matters our fathers have shown a 

 culpable recklessness in what they have told us. They 

 enjoined, for instance, the duty of burning witches, and 

 set us a spirited example in that line of public duty. 

 They prescribed profuse bleeding as the surest remedy for 

 almost every ailment, and held it to be expedient to drink 

 a bottle of strong port daily. Subsequent experience, 

 submitted to reflection, has led us to regard the state- 

 ments of our fathers with a good deal of suspicion, and to 

 apply to them the ordinary rules of evidence. What really 

 distresses me in this matter of how to deal with owls, is 

 the apparent incapacity of certain expensively educated 

 persons to understand the nature of evidence, or, at least, 

 to admit that it is respectable to require evidence before 

 condemning beautiful animals to the penalty of death. 



The charge against owls is that they destroy young 

 game, especially young pheasants, hand-reared at the 

 coops. Now, of the many persons who have written to 

 me to say that they wish with all their hearts they could 

 agree with me as to the innocence of owls in this respect, 



