148 WITCH'S BROOM ON BIRCH 



especially hand-reared pheasant chicks. Let us examine 

 this charge in detail. Of the ten British owls, only the 

 eagle owl, the snowy owl, and the short-eared owl can 

 hunt by day, the only time when young game is abroad. 

 Of these, the first two may be dismissed as beyond the 

 question. Fierce, formidable, and destructive, their 

 ravages would be very serious if we were exposed to 

 them; but we are not. They are among our rarest 

 visitors, appearing only here and there at long intervals 

 under stress of weather, and clearing for foreign parts 

 on the earliest opportunity. As for the short-eared owl 

 the woodcock owl, as it is sometimes called, because it 

 usually comes with the woodcocks no doubt it is a 

 destructive day hunter, and would make sad work among 

 young grouse, partridges, and pheasants if such were to 

 be had in winter. For it is only in winter that the short- 

 eared owl is with us. A few pairs, very few, remain to 

 breed in the northern parts of the kingdom ; nearly all 

 vanish in spring to rear their young in high latitudes. 

 So the third day-hunting species must be acquitted of 

 poaching on the plea of alibi. As to the direct service 

 rendered by owls to farmers, may I refer to my evidence 

 as an eye-witness in a former volume of these notes. 1 



XXXVII 



I have often been asked, and been obliged as often to 



witch's own to ig noranc e of, the nature and cause of 



Broom on those crowded bunches of twigs, like large 



birds' nests, which disfigure birch trees in so 



many of our woods. I imagined vaguely that the morbid 



1 Memories of the Months, Second Series, pp. 99-102. 



