148 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



birds during their season of breeding, which lasts the 

 summer through, the following remarks may not perhaps be 

 unacceptable : About an hour before sunset (for then the 

 mice begin to run) they sally forth in quest of prey, and 

 hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small enclosures 

 for them, which seem to be their only food. In this 

 irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see 

 them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop 

 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 the 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 in 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 their feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on 

 the wall as they are rising under the eaves. 



White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to 

 hoot at all ; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to 

 come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed 

 snore and hiss in a tremendous manner ; and these menaces 

 well answer the intention of intimidating ; for I have 

 known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, 

 imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres. 

 While owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; 

 from this screaming probably arose the common people's 

 imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously 

 think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage 



