38 OWLS 



caring to do anything to repair or make them 

 comfortable. A clump of high fir-trees at the edge 

 of a large expanse of down or heath, like Mayor 

 Pond, or Yellowham Wood, or Badbury Rings in 

 Dorset, is a favourite resort. Its single call-note of 

 "hook, hook" is seldom heard except in summer-time, 

 and only when the evening is far advanced. But I 

 remember well when, many years ago, I was climbing 

 to a likely-looking nest in a big clump in the middle 

 of the open Whitechurch Down, which contained at 

 that very time and oh ! what a paradise of birds it 

 was ! within its limited compass, the nests of two 

 other birds of prey, a sparrow hawk and a carrion 

 crow, the weird and varied cries which proceeded 

 from an adjoining tree, and which, accompanied by 

 the strangest and most distressful motions and 

 grimaces, betrayed the anxious solicitude of the 

 mother's heart. The nest contained five young 

 owlets covered with brown or yellow down, with eyes 

 which were already at their brightest, and horns 

 which were just beginning to appear. One of them 

 I managed to rear, and a very amusing and interest- 

 ing pet he was. He would remain perched with his 

 eyes closed, apparently in sleep, the greater part of 

 the day, but with a tiny slit left open, from which he 

 could see just as much as it behoved him to know ; 



