“From motives of revenge. The owl loses no opportunity to gobble up those little birds in the night, and shows no more compunction over it than if they were nothing but common mice. Therefore what a frolic it is for the little winged people when by good luck the night-bird strays into the light of day! The pecks fall thick as hail on the sufferer’s back, and it is nearly deafened with shrill screams of triumph and insulting cries of hatred. The redbreast pulls out a feather, the tomtit threatens the enemy’s eyes, the jay overwhelms it with abuse. The whole grove is in an uproar. But beware when night closes in; then the boldest will lose courage. These same saucy little birds, that come in the daytime and insult the owl, flee from it in wild alarm as soon as darkness allows it to move about and use its powerful talons and hooked beak.” “The redbreast had better get out of the owl’s way when the owl can see,” said Emile; “it would pay dearly if it tried then to pull out a feather.” “On account of the great size of their eyes, nocturnal birds of prey require a soft light like that of dawn and nightfall. Consequently, they leave their lurking-places to hunt for prey either soon after sunset or just before dawn. Then it is that their raids are most likely to be successful, for they find the small animals either fast asleep or on the point of falling asleep. Moonlight nights are the best for their purposes; those are their nights of veritable joy and feasting, when they can hunt for hours at a time and lay in large supplies of choice provisions. But when there is no moon they have only one scant hour in the early morning and another in the evening for hunting. That means they must fast for hours and that is why they are so greedy when they can get as much food as they want.” “They are very silly to fast like that,” Emile declared. “In their place I should hunt all night, even without a moon.” “You say that because you think the owl can see clearly in the blackest darkness. But you are mistaken. To see, we must not merely direct our gaze toward the object to be seen; we must receive into our eyes the light reflected from that object. In the act of seeing, nothing goes out from us; everything comes to us from the thing seen. We do not really throw our glance toward any given object; it is the object that throws its light toward us; or if it does not throw any light, it is for that reason invisible. What I am now saying about human beings applies to all animals. Not one, absolutely not one, can see in the absence of light.” “I had always thought,” said Louis, “that cats could see in pitch-darkness.”