LIll,] 
OF SELBORNE. 
141 
and small inclosures for tliem, which seem to he their only food. 
In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see 
them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, often dropping down 
in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch 
for an hour together, and have found that they return to their 
nest, the one or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; 
reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal 
is possessed of as far as regards the well-being of itself and 
offspring. But a piece of address which they show when they 
return loaded should not, I think, be passed over in silence. 
As they take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in 
their claws to their nest : but as the feet are necessary in their 
ascent under the tiles, they constantly perch first on the roof of 
the chancel, and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, 
that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on 
the wall as they are rising under the eaves. 
"White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot 
at all : all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from 
the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in 
a tremendous manner ; and these menaces will answer the inten- 
tion of intimidating : for I have known a whole village up in 
arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-yard to be full 
of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly 
as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the com- 
mon people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they 
superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. 
The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl 
that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps 
it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not 
make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to 
steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry. 
While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to 
mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of AVilts. 
As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been 
the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom, 
a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After 
some examination, he found that it was the congeries of the 
bones of mice, and perhaps of birds and bats, that had been 
