etimes use an old
rabbit burrow for a nest, in which they lay one pure white egg, and one
only. When the young one is hatched the parent birds feed it on tiny
fish and minnows. You can see here the puffin bringing up a minnow in
his beak for supper.

Beyond are great grey and white gulls, with their keen beaks and strong
legs. They are pirates, the gulls, and will eat other birds' eggs if
they can get them; they are wild and fierce. Another sea-bird, very
different in appearance, is the little stormy petrel. Very small and
graceful; he is a thin little bird, with a dark-brown coat, but at heart
as wild as the proud gulls. He is never happy except when dancing over
the cold grey waves and feeling the dash of the spray. The petrel is at
sea all day, and scorns the quiet land and delights of home. The howl of
the storm, the clash of the water is music to it, and it would pine and
die in a cage on land. When it wants to lay an egg, it makes a nest not
far from its beloved sea, and lays there one egg; but even when the
young one is hatched the mother cannot give up her wandering life. She
is a wanderer by nature, and she only comes back at nights to see that
the little one has food; then away to the wild tossing grey water again.

The next set of birds are the owls, and very wicked and ferocious some
of them look. There is the long-eared owl, with his bent-in, short,
hooked nose and funny feathered ears standing straight up. The little
owls are balls of soft fluff, and are eagerly looking at the dead mouse
that father owl has brought for them to eat. They have a very rough
nest, merely a platform of pine-twigs thrown together in the fork of a
fir-tree; but they are hardy little birds, and do not mind that at all.
Close by is a monster owl, called the great eagle owl. He has bright
yellow eyes, with very large pupils as black as jet; his tail is spread
like a turkey-cock's, and altogether he looks very terrifying. You would
not like to meet him alone if you had made him angry, for he is as large
as a fair-sized dog, and his ugly claws and savage beak would make short
work of your soft face and bright eyes. Luckily, you are not likely to
meet him, for he doesn't live in England.

It is worth while to cross over here to the other side of the gallery
and see the great bustard, with his wonderful curving white feathers. He
is about the size of a small turkey, whose cousin he is, and his plumes
are like those on a field-marshal'