DEC. OWLS — FROGS. 57 



My kitchen-garden was overrun with mice, who not 

 only ate up peas and other seeds, but also nibbled 

 and destroyed great numbers of peaches ; but since 

 I have had a tame owl in the garden, the mice have 

 disappeared entirely, having been destroyed by him 

 and his relations and fi'iends who visit him at night. 

 Sometimes an owl, either the common brown one 

 or else one of the long-eared kind, posts himself all 

 day long bolt upright in one of the evergreens near 

 the house. The small birds first point out his 

 whereabouts, by their clamour and fluttering round 

 him ; but the owl sits quite unconcerned in the 

 midst of the uproar, blinking his eyes and nodding 

 his head as quietly as if in his accustomed seques- 

 tered thicket or hollow tree. 



The long-eared owl, with his bright yellow eyes 

 and hooked bill, has a most imp-like appearance 

 when seen sitting motionless on the low branch of 

 a tree or ivy -covered wall. 



The chief food of owls are mice and birds, but 

 they are also very fond of frogs. When an owl catches 

 one of these animals, instead of swallowing it whole, 

 as he does a mouse, he tears it to pieces, while still 

 alive, in the most cruel manner, regardless of its 

 shrill cries. 



I have no doubt that were it not for their nume- 

 rous enemies, such as birds of prey, crows, ravens, 



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