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CHAPTER IX. 



" Encourag'd thus, she brought her younglings nigh, 

 Watching the motions of her patron's eye, 

 * * * * ; the rest amaz'd, 

 Stood mutely still and on the stranger gazed. 



DRYDEN. 



" It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, which 

 gives the stern'st good night." SHAKSPEAEE. 



IT was a fair bright morning in June (the 19th). The 

 cool soft breeze that floated in from the seaward played 

 around my temples with a delicious freshness, as I 

 loaded my gun with large and small shot, and 

 cautiously set to work beneath the shade of a long 

 range of hills. The ground varies exceedingly about 

 this part of the Mainland. Now, a spreading extent 

 of peat bog ; now, a considerable patch of dry bleached 

 heather ; now, a carpet of rich green moss ; now, a 

 puny jungle of dying reeds and rushes. Relying upon 

 undoubted intelligence that short-eared owls and other 

 rare birds, rapidly becoming still more scarce, have 

 been known to breed about these parts, I determined 

 to make the utmost of the locality, and to use my beat 



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