240 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



bigger than he. In fact, Mr. Bos worth Smith declares 

 that she outshines him altogether : " She takes the lead 

 throughout. Her talons have a terrible grip and strength. 

 She has been known to kill a dog or a sheep, and to carry 

 off a full-grown hare without much apparent trouble. 



" When she is angered by the unceremonious approach 

 of a visitor [to her cage] she lowers her head almost to the 

 ground, moves it slowly from side to side in a long sweep, 

 snaps loudly with her bill, quivers from head to foot with 

 half-suppressed rage, and raises her wings in a vast circle 

 above her body, each particular feather standing on end, 

 erect and distinct, her eyes flashing fiercely the while, and 

 turning from a yellow to a fiery red." 



Some of you will one day come across a fine passage 

 in Tennyson's " Idylls of the King," in which he pictures two 

 riders gazing from a hilltop in the midst of a gloomy forest, 

 at a distant valley where a little reedy lake, 



"Eound as the red eye of an Eagle-Owl, 

 Under the half-dead sunset glared." 



That splendid eye seems stronger than that of other 

 night-flying birds. For though he is really a nocturnal 

 hunter, he does not seem at all blinded or bewildered if he 

 is forced to fly out into the sunshine by some one who has 

 surprised him asleep. 



A number of Eagle Owls were once kept by the Duke of 

 Norfolk at his Sussex home, Arundel Castle. The whole 

 of the ancient keep was enclosed with netting, and the 

 historic building, with its clump of shady trees and bushes, 

 became their home. It was a most enviable existence, for 

 the conditions were just what these birds like, and all foes 

 were kept at a distance. 



So they might have been seen perched in niche and 

 window, dignified as a king and solemn as a judge. In- 



