32 OWLS 



bird of night and quite unlike themselves, they 

 hardly know him at all. A boy at school who is 

 quite unlike other boys, who takes a line of his own, 

 and has higher interests than those of athletics, is 

 too often likely to be dubbed as " mad," and to have 

 a bad time of it among his companions ; and birds, 

 in this particular, are not much ahead of boys. 



It is a little hard upon a bird so aloof and 

 inoffensive as the owl, so often molested by other 

 birds, and so seldom molesting them in return, that 

 it should have been selected by Tennyson as a type 

 of the critics whom he affected to despise, and yet 

 whom he too often allowed to make his life a burden 

 to him : 



" While I live, the owls ; 

 When I die, the GHOULS." 



From the arch enemy of the rat, I pass, once 

 more, to the rats themselves, that I may relate a 

 curious experience of my own, of a few years ago, 

 near my present home. One advantage of the 

 cycle of the day to those who care for Nature, as 

 well as for the extent of ground which they can 

 cover, is the way in which it enables its rider to 

 steal quietly on the wild creatures which he loves to 

 watch. He may pass, noticing but quite unnoticed, 

 and pause as he passes, within a few feet of the 



