Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 15

Little Folk

FAU Rights Rosorved.]

OUT IN THE NIGHT

(Written for "Tho Post" by Edith Howes.)

lII.—ROUND-EYES THE OWL.

Day was fading into evening: when the young moreporks sat up and clamoured for food. They shook their round young bodies and opened their wide mouths and called aloud. "I'm hungry!" cried the first. "We're all hungry," said the other two. "Mother, do wake up and give us something to ''eat."

, Mother Morepork lifted her head from under her wing and slowly opened her big round eyes. "Stop thp,t noise!" she commanded sharply. "Stop it, I say. Do you want Blue-ey the wild cat to hear you, and so find out where you are? She would be up this tree as soon as I had gone to hunt, and somehow she would get you. Her paws are long and her claws are sharp. lam always warning you. Never call so loudly again. I am not deaf. . , ,

' "But you were asleep," complained the owlets, "and we are so hungry."

"You will have to stay hungry till it is darker," said the mother. "It is far too light yet for me to go out. The owlets looked at the opening above them in the wall of. the hollow tree where they lived. Leaf-shadows fluttered across it and the sky still showed through, though its brightness faded to grey. Yes, it was still light. When they looked down again the darkness was comforting, and their eyes opened big and round like their mother's, and were lit ■with the same yellow glow —that glow which was a terror and bewitchment to the smaller creatures of the night, but which here" in their secluded woody home was a tender mother-radi-ance. ' .■''■'•

"Why is it?" asked the eldest owlet. "Why is what?" „ : "Why is it that you can't go out to hunt in the day?" "Night-time is owl-time. Strong daylight hurts our. eyes and we can't see to hunt. Besides, the day birds are our enemies, and would peck at me while I stood helpless if I went but in the light. Remember that when you grow up and go out into the world: night-time is owl-time."

"Why would the day-birds peck at you, Mother?"

"Because I'peck at them if I find them: in the night. Don't I bring you home tender young birds to eat. That is why they hate us. Of course it is absurd of them to make such a fuss about it. Wo have to live, and they themselves live on other creatures. You know what we find in their crops wßen we tear them open. Thousands and thousands and thousands of insects are eaten by them every-day. And a good thing, too; * for if they didn't devonr the caterpillars and the grubs there would soon be no forest left for us to live in; caterpillars and grubs in millions would eat off every leaf and twig, and every tree would die and fallj Yes, everything lives on something else, and they should remember that," "0, Mother, how wise you are!" exclaimed the eldest owlet;, but the thought of all those caterpillars , and grubs was too much for the youngest one. 'i am so hungry !" he wailed. "Dear me, what an untidy house.' Remember, when you grow up that, baby owls must be kept clean if they are to be healthy," said the mother; and . she bustled about, throwing out the peliets of'bones and fur which they had disgorged after their last meal of mice. For a while the owlets were kept moving and had no time to think of their Hunger; presently, when the. sky had ceased to show through the opening, she flipped out like a shadow and was gone. i The owlets waited quietly, remembering her warning about Blue-grey, the cat. Mother was a good hunter; she would soon be back. And back she soon came, bearing in her beak'a young dead rat. "Here's a feast for you," she said, and she tore it apart for them and divided it evenly, keeping none of it for herself.

"Blue-grey the cat was after it," she told them. "I saw her stalking something, so I followed overhead. She pounced, but I swooped just before her and got the rat. Now I will go and look for another. The day birds ought to be glad of us, for we kill the rats that would eat their eggs and babies." The youngest owlet gulped down his last bit o{ meat and looked up at her pleadingly. "Baby birds are so sweet," he said. "Oh, Mother, 1 should like a baby bird." .

"Arid you shall have one, my pet," she told him; and out she went again into the night. Presently there was a fluttering and a frightened crying in a tree near, and she came back with three unfeathered baby birds in her beak. The -.owlets had one each and began to look ; very round and contented. "Everything eats something else, and in that way the world is kept straight," remarked Mother Morepork as she went off once more. She swallowed unwary moths and beetles on her Way, and she called to Father Morepork and was answered, and together they went hunting through the dark still bush, dropping with their muffled noiseless flight on rat 'or mouse and devouring it or carrying it home to the owlets. It was after midnight when Mother Morepork came in, very flustered and upset. "Oh, imy dearest," she said; "Oh, I have had such a time. I thought I should never see you again. Oh, those dreadful creatures!" "Whatever has happened, Mother?" i "We were hunting, your father and ij when wo came to a-strange clearing in the bush. Many a night have we hunted that part, but never before have we seen the clearing. And in the clearing is the. biggest nest you could imagine. It stands on the ground, and it is made of scrub cunningly intertwined, and it has a peaked top and a | pole that stands out for one to sit on. We were sitting there, staring about,us and wondering what new'and enormous bird had built the strange nest, when a ' mouse crept into the clearing. We both .saw it and both' swooped for' it, but somehow we both missed it. If your father had only left it to me, all would have been well. But as I say; we missed it, and it ran into that huge nest. I said 'If a mouse can go in there, I can go in!' though your father begged me not to. So, in I went. I wanted that mouse, and I wanted to see what the inside of the nest was like. "Well, it was a queer place, with a great deal of pulled fern spread on the ground. Of course the mouse must run into the fern, and I went after it. That woke the creatures up, for there were two of them, and they were sleeping on the fern. One of them seized me and the other made a ligh' like a star 'with his claws, and they made strange loud noises to each other. Oh, it was terrible! Never,have I heard such a din, and never have 1 been so afraid. They wore truly enormous creatures. Not birds; 1 don't know whiH they are! And that one held mo savagely and ao doubt I

he would have devoured me, but I tore at his claw with my beak. At that he "dropped me and I escaped. Of course your father has said: 'I told you so !' all fhe way home. And, .oh, dear, I- am shaking all over. And I didn't get that mouse after all." (To be Continued.)