192 WILD FIDELITY. 
flapping together over the waste, with an 
odd, uneven, wavering, erratic flight that was 
ghostly. Nor did their unanimous silence, 
even of wing-beat, detract from the eeriness 
of them. 
They were short-eared owls, the lost souls 
of the heath, travellers, nomads, wanderers 
oer the face of the globe. Though this was 
England, yesterday, or the day before, they 
had probably been in Norway, or Russia, 
or goodness knows where. But to-day, this 
evening, they were here, on this heath, passing 
on their uncertain course above the wounded 
bird. Her they saw. They checked. They 
hovered about her, flapping, fluttering their 
big wings, looking more uncannily like weird 
leviathan moths than ever. 
The wounded bird was a short-eared owl 
too. One of the three above was her mate. 
Anon, with one accord, they left her, flying 
a low, flapping, uncertain way over the stunted 
growth, in lines, spreading out as they went. 
Neither bird spoke then. 
The rabbit was still there, panting on the 
carmine-speckled grass. The phantom form 
of the wounded owl’s mate flipped hither and 
yon, hither and yon, and—hovered suddenly. 
He was above the rabbit. The others 
joined him, hovering together, flapping, rising 
