Not
until that moment had I known any owl except the common burrowing-owl
of the plain, a small grey-and-white bird, half diurnal in its habits,
with a pretty dove-like voice when it hooted round the house of an
evening.
In a few moments my father came running over to my side, an iron bar
in his hand, and looking into the barrel began a furious assault on
the bird. "This then is the culprit!" he cried. "This is the rat that
has been destroying my birds by the score! Now he's going to pay for
it;" and so on, striking down with the bar while the bird struggled
frantically to rise and make its escape; but in the end it was killed
and thrown out on the floor.
That was the first and only time I saw my father kill a bird, and
nothing but his extreme anger against the robber of his precious
pigeons would have made him do a thing so contrary to his nature. He
was quite willing to have birds killed--young pigeons, wild ducks,
plover, snipe, whimbrel, tinamou or partridge, and various others
which he liked to eat--but the killing always had to be done by
others. He hated to see any bird killed that was not for the table,
and that was why he tolerated the falcon, and even allowed a pair of
_caranchos_, or carrion-eagles--birds destructive to poultry, and
killers when they got the chance of newly-born lambs and sucking-
pigs--to have their huge nest in one of the old peach-trees for
several years.
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