324 SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. 



ducks are as merry and noisy as ever. It is well 

 for them that they have no human minds, or the 

 horror of his presence would have stilled their 

 innocent merriment for the night. A more terrible 

 foe than the eagle-owl to all that are too weak to 

 resist him it is hard to conceive. The huge spread 

 of utterly silent wings, the lugubrious cry, the 

 enormous talons, sharper and more tenacious than 

 those of an eagle, and those great fierce eyes, 

 luminous with yellow tire, all contribute to make 

 a tout-ensemble of which a Hindoo devil might be 

 proud. Ghostlike, he glides by close to the earth, 

 a silent cloud in the moonlight, on wings that 

 never seem to stir. Woe to the crouching hare 

 whose ears, quick though they are, have told her 

 nothing of the approach of her mortal foe. 



If the Tartars and moujiks of the steppes 

 where the eagle-owl is found are to be believed, 

 once the great bird seizes its prey, it has not itself 

 the power of relaxing its grip immediately. 

 Knowing this, and dreading lest the old grey 

 hare, gaining fresh strength from terror, should 

 in her rnad career under thorn-bush and briar 

 tear her unwilling rider to fragments, the owl 

 clutches the ground or some other object with 

 one talon, while with the other she strikes the 

 prey. And now it becomes a tug of war for life 

 and death. If the owl's muscles are strong 

 enough to hold the prey, well for the owl ; but 



