“Entertaining, does he say?” asked Jane. “I should rather think terrifying, Uncle Thomas.” “He speaks ironically,” said Uncle Thomas, “and thinks exactly as you do. The hooting of the Owl, however, we must not regard as a mere incident in nature, without any use but that of frightening benighted travellers. It is one of those wise provisions to assist it in procuring its prey. As it sits in waiting on some solitary eminence, or pursues its stealthy flight over the places where it knows they frequent, it utters its well known, and discordant note. Terrified at the unexpected presence of their enemy, its prey shrink and endeavour to escape, and it is ten chances to one if the Owl is close at hand that he discovers them either by the eye or the ear. “Some of the larger Owls, such as the Great Tufted one, of whose haunts I have just read you Wilson’s description, feed on small birds, Squirrels, Rabbits, and young Partridges, and as they are very voracious eaters, it is astonishing how many they will destroy. On one occasion a sportsman fired at a very large one, and broke its wing. He took it home to a farm house, where, after remaining for several days, it disappeared, no one could tell how. Almost every day after its mysterious departure Hens and Chickens also vanished, one by one, in the same unacountable manner, till in eight or ten days very few were left remaining. The Fox and the Weasel were alternately the reputed authors of the mischief, until one morning the old lady of the house, herself, rising before day to bake, in passing towards the oven surprised her late prisoner, the Owl, regaling himself on the body of a newly-killed Hen! The thief instantly made for his hole under the house, from which the enraged matron soon dislodged him with the brush-handle, and dispatched him without mercy. In this snug retreat were found the greater part of the feathers and many very large fragments of her whole family of Chickens.