4 OWLS 



" Zee, I have shot a schnipe mit einem face 

 Push-cats." 



The nocturnal movements of the owl tribe ; the 

 upright position in which they habitually hold 

 themselves ; the big, rounded head ; the full, round, 

 prominent eyes, which, except when they are glazed 

 with sleep, look you full in the face, for the simple 

 reason that, unlike those of other birds, they are 

 planted in front, rather than at the side of the 

 head ; the successive bands of short soft feathers 

 which surround the eye, all pointing inwards, and 

 so making it the centre, as it were, not of one, but 

 of many circles ; the fluffy feathers of the body, 

 which make the whole appear twice as large as it 

 really is for an owl, though he will gorge, or try to 

 gorge, a fair-sized rat, is always thin nothing, in 

 fact, but skin and bones and feathers ; the sleepy 

 air of contemplation or of wisdom which probably 

 made the Athenians regard it as the sacred bird of 

 Pallas ; the eyelid behind eyelid which passes 

 swiftly, now one, now another, over the eye, 

 shielding it from the garish light of day, and 

 tempering the apparent gravity of its thought by a 

 suspicious though superficial resemblance to a 

 wink ; all mark off the subject of this chapter, in all 

 its species, from all other birds. 



