e.'

'Did that come from Canada too?'

'No; I shot him not far from here, one day, by great luck.'

'Are they difficult to shoot?'

'Rather. I sat half a day in a booth made with branches, to get the
chance. There were several of them about that day, so I lay in wait.
They are not very plenty just about here. That other fellow is the
great European lammergeyer.'

Esther had placed herself on one of the hard wooden chairs, but now she
rose and went nearer the birds, standing before them in great
admiration. Slowly then she went from one thing in the room to another,
pausing to contemplate each. A beautiful white owl, very large and
admirably mounted, held her eyes for some time.

'That is the Great Northern Owl,' observed her companion. 'They are
found far up in the regions around the North Pole, and only now and
then come so far south as this.'

'What claws!' said Esther.

'Talons. Yes, they would carry off a rabbit very easily.'

'Do they!' cried Esther, horrified.

'I don't doubt that fellow has carried off many a one, as well as hosts
of smaller fry--squirrels, mice, and birds.'

'He looks cruel,' observed Esther, with an abhorrent motion of her
shoulders.

'He does, rather. But he is no more cruel than all the rest.'

'The rest of what?' said Esther, turning towards him.

'The rest of creation--all the carnivorous portion of it, I mean.'

'Are they all like that? they don't look so. The eyes of pigeons, for
instance, are quite different.'

'Pigeons are not flesh-eaters.'

'Oh!' said Esther wonderingly. 'No, I know; they eat bread and grain;
and canary birds eat seeds. Are there _many_ birds that live on flesh?'

'A great many, Queen Esther. All creation, nearly, preys on some other
part of creation--except that respectable number that are granivorous,
and herbivorous, and graminivorous.'

Esther stood before the owl, musing; and Dallas, who was studying the
child now, watched her.

'But what I want to know, is,' began Esther, as if she were carrying on
an argument, '_why_ those that eat flesh look so much more wicked than
the others that eat other things?'

'Do they?' said Dallas. 'That is the first question.'

'Why, yes,' said Esther, 'they do, Pitt. If you will think. There are
sheep and cows and rabbits, and doves and chickens'--

'Halt there!' cried Dallas. 'Chickens are as good flesh-eaters as
anybody, and as cruel about it, too. See two chickens pulling at the
two ends of one eart