THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Some three weeks later I had a splendid opportunity of witnessing 
the manner in which these birds capture their food. One morning, as I 
was smoking my pipe, seated on a log near a farmhouse in the Grondals 
Valley, a hawk-owl came and pitched on to the summit of a dead pine 
within sixty yards of me. I kept perfectly still, and the bird either did not 
see me or was indifferent to my presence. He was evidently in search 
of food, as he kept moving his head from side to side with a gentle stoop- 
ing motion, gazing fixedly at a certain point where small mammals 
might be expected to materialize. Twice had the bird almost thrown 
himself into the air, when he checked the movement, evidently in con- 
sequence of the retreat of the prey. The third time there was no mistake, 
for the owl opened his wings and, taking a slanting direction downwards, 
dropped like an arrow towards myself. As he did so I noticed that his 
tail was elevated well above the wings, evidently for the double purpose 
of controlling his flight and assisting the subsequent spreading of his 
feathers, which took place just as he checked his descent, threw out his 
legs, and seized the mouse. This all occurred within fifteen yards of my 
position, so I could distinctly see the struggles of the mouse and the 
quiet, businesslike manner in which the owl lowered his head and, with 
one nip, instantly severed the spinal cord of his struggling captive. 
Then came one or two nervous looks around, and with rapid beat of 
wings the bird ascended once again to his lofty watch tower, where he 
commenced the preparation of dinner. I could see through my glass 
how carefully he crunched the motionless body which he gripped so 
firmly in his right foot. Every bone in the little mouse must have been 
broken again and again ere the bird, with one satisfactory gulp, swallowed 
his prey. 
Yarrell’s figure of the hawk-owl is a very poor representation of this 
interesting species, and subsequent illustrators are equally at fault in 
setting the tail nearly upright, according to the stereotyped conception 
of the usual hawk and owl habit. Only very rarely does the bird carry 
his tail in this wise, its normal position being much like that of the finches 
and other perching birds, at an angle of quite twenty -five degrees out of 
the perpendicular. The eyes are of an intensely brilliant yellow, brighter 
even than those of the goshawk. 
Autumn is not the best time of the year in which to study the bird- 
life of Northern Scandinavia, for, with few exceptions, such as the hawk- 
owl, the eagle-owl, the white-tailed sea-eagle and the capercailzie, all 
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