I Never Saw Him Angrier Than Once When A Visitor
Staying In The House, Going Out With His Gun One Day Suddenly Threw It
Up To His Shoulder And Brought Down A Passing Swallow.
That was my first encounter with the short-eared owl, a world-
wandering species, known familiarly to the sportsman in England as the
October or woodcock owl; an inhabitant of the whole of Europe, also of
Asia, Africa, America, Australasia, and many Atlantic and Pacific
islands.
No other bird has so vast a range; yet nobody in the house
could tell me anything about it, excepting that it was an owl, which I
knew, and no such bird was found in our neighbourhood. Several months
later I found out more about it, and this was when I began to ramble
about the plain on my pony.
One of the most attractive spots to me at that time, when my
expeditions were not yet very extended, was a low-lying moist stretch
of ground about a mile and a half from home, where on account of the
moisture it was always a vivid green. In spring it was like a moist
meadow in England, a perfect garden of wild flowers, and as it was
liable to become flooded in wet winters it was avoided by the
_vizcachas_, the big rodents that make their warrens or villages
of huge burrows all over the plain. Here I used to go in quest of the
most charming flowers which were not found in other places; one, a
special favourite on account of its delicious fragrance, being the
small lily called by the natives _Lagrimas de la Virgin_ - Tears
of the Virgin.
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