14 OWLS 



stand on an eminence and see them beat the fields 

 over like a setting-dog, often dropping down in the 

 grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my 

 watch for an hour together, and have found that 

 they return to their nest, the one or 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 with 

 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 the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the 

 plate on the wall as they are rising under the 

 eaves. * 



How simple is this record, how fresh, how 

 redolent of the countryside, how instinct with that 

 nameless charm which defies analysis, but which 

 has made the name of Gilbert White to be a name 

 of honour and of love with all the English-speaking 

 peoples, and has made, and will, doubtless, continue 

 to make, his little Hampshire village of Selborne, 

 with its Wakes, its Plestor, its beech-crowned 



* White's Selborne, letter liii. 



