64 OWLS 



incident will suffice. Gould, the author of so many 

 splendid ornithological works, had, one day, climbed 

 a tree in Australia to get at an owl's nest. " Yes, 

 here he is," he cried to his friend below, " I can 

 see his great eyes." He put his hand down boldly 

 into the hole. It turned out as often happens with 

 such holes to be full of water, and it was the reflec- 

 tion of his own eyes which he had seen therein. 



The affection of the brown owl for its young, 

 sometimes takes a truly tragical form. A brood of 

 young owls, belonging, presumably, to the same two 

 parents I have described above, had been taken by 

 a dairyman who lived at Stafford, a field or two off, 

 and were placed by him in a wire cage of wide mesh, 

 which was hung up in the open barton. The parent 

 birds soon discovered their brood, and, night after 

 night, for weeks, brought them a supply of rats and 

 mice which they deftly dropped through the bars of 

 the cage. They could not make their own way in 

 to their young, but, apparently, they cherished a fond 

 hope that, some day, their young might be able to 

 make their way out to them. But it was not to be ; 

 and the young birds were found, one morning, all dead 

 in the cage without any external mark of violence, 

 poisoned, as the dairyman and the inhabitants gener- 

 ally believed and there is much, I think, on general 



