In this
irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see them beat
the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop 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 nests, 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
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.
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