THE OWLS METHOD 87 



fences and surprising small birds, or mice, on which 

 it drops before they have recovered from their 

 surprise. 



The owl does none of these things. For one 

 thing, it hunts in the night, when its sight is keenest 

 and rats are abroad feeding. Its flight is almost 

 noiseless and yet marvellously light and rapid when 

 it pleases. Sailing over field, lane and hedgerow 

 and examining the ground as it goes, it finds a 

 likely place and takes a post of observation on a 

 fence perhaps, or a sheaf of corn. Here it sits, bolt 

 upright, all eyes. It sees a rat emerge from the 

 grass and advance slowly, as it feeds, into open 

 ground. There is no hurry, for the doom of that 

 rat is already fixed. So the owl just sits and watches 

 till the right moment has arrived ; then it flits 

 swiftly, softly, silently, across the intervening space 

 and drops like a flake of snow. Without warning, 

 or suspicion of danger, the rat feels eight sharp 

 claws buried in its flesh. It protests with frantic 

 squeals, but these are stopped with a nip that 

 crunches its skull, and the owl is away with it to 

 the old tower, where the hungry children are calling, 

 with weird, impatient hisses, for something to eat. 



The owl does not hunt the fields and hedgerows 

 only. It goes to all places where rats or mice may 

 be, reconnoitres farmyards, barns and dwelling 

 houses and boldly enters open windows. Sometimes 

 it hovers in the air, like a kestrel, scanning the 

 ground below. And though its regular hunting 

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