bird to inhabit the grove or its vicinity. There was a very ancient and
respectable old bachelor owl that had long had his lodgings in a corner
of the grove, but has been fairly ejected by the rooks, and has retired,
disgusted with the world, to a neighbouring wood, where he leads the
life of a hermit, and makes nightly complaints of his ill-treatment.

[Illustration: The Hermit Owl]

The hootings of this unhappy gentleman may generally be heard in the
still evenings, when the rooks are all at rest; and I have often
listened to them of a moonlight night with a kind of mysterious
gratification. This gray-bearded misanthrope of course is highly
respected by the squire, but the servants have superstitious notions
about him; and it would be difficult to get the dairymaid to venture
after dark near to the wood which he inhabits.

Besides the private quarrels of the rooks, there are other misfortunes
to which they are liable, and which often bring distress into the most
respectable families of the rookery. Having the true baronial spirit of
the good old feudal times, they are apt now and then to issue forth from
their castles on a foray, and to lay the plebeian fields of the
neighbouring country under contribution; in the course of which
chivalrous expeditions they now and then get a shot from the rusty
artillery of some refractory farmer. Occasionally, too, while they are
quietly taking the air beyond the park boundaries, they have the
incaution to come within the reach of the truant bowmen of Slingsby's
school, and receive a flight shot from some unlucky urchin's arrow. In
such case the wounded adventurer will sometimes have just strength
enough to bring himself home, and giving up the ghost at the rookery,
will hang dangling "all abroad" on a bough like a thief on a gibbet; an