106 
G. HOOPER—birds: their nests and habits. 
excavates a hole in the hank where she makes her nest, or rather 
lays her eggs, for the nest is nothing more than a heap of cast-up 
fish-bones. She lays, so far as my experience goes, seven eggs, 
and, as there is no shaft for ventilation, and her sanitary arrange¬ 
ments are incomplete, the smell from the hole when the young are 
hatched is by no means pleasant; it is, in fact, abominable. I 
used to wonder how the bird, which frequently breeds at a con¬ 
siderable distance from the water, got her young down to it, but 
I made it out this season. There was a nest in Mr. Pryor’s park 
(High Elms, Watford), at least a mile from the River Colne, 
the bird’s nearest haunt. When the young had left the nest, I 
found two of them dead under a high bank which lay in their way. 
I have no doubt but that the old birds fed them until they con¬ 
sidered them fit to accomplish the journey, and then led them 
forth. The two I saw being too weak to top the bank, fell back 
and perished. The young birds have the beautiful colours of their 
parents, as is always the case with birds of which the cock and hen 
are alike. 
I have, I fear, trespassed on your attention far too long, otherwise 
I would have given some account of the owls. The white owl, 
that “aerial wanderer of the night,” is one of the most beautiful of 
our birds, and perhaps the most useful one we have—useful alike 
to the farmer and gardener, from whose hands, I fear, instead of 
protection, it frequently meets with persecution;—but time will 
not allow. I will, with your permission, quote a poetical descrip¬ 
tion of the owl, which occurs to my memory :■— 
“ In the hollow tree in the old grey tower, 
The spectral owl doth dwell, 
Dull, hated, despised in the noontide hour, 
But at dusk he’s abroad and well; 
Not a bird of the forest e’er mates with him, 
All mock him outright by day, 
But at night, when the woods grow still and dim, 
The boldest will shrink away. 
And the owl hath a bride, who is fond and hold, 
And loveth the wood’s deep gloom, 
And with eyes like the shine of the moonstone cold, 
She awaiteth her ghastly groom ; 
Not a feather she moves, not a carol she sings, 
As she waits on her tree, so still, 
But, when her heart heareth his flapping wings, 
She hoots out her welcome shrill. 
* # * * * 
Mourn not for the owl, nor his ghastly mate, 
They are each unto each a pride, 
Thrice happy perchance since a strange dark fate 
Hath reft them from all beside.” 
