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's helmet. Near here are two curious sorts of nests--one the Norfolk plover, or, as he is called, thick-knee; the eggs are just laid on the sand, and are so much the same colours as the speckled stones around that you have to look hard to find them, and at a little distance they seem to vanish altogether. The funny little wee birds, too, are just like rough sand, and have two black lines down their backs; crouching down without moving, they would be well hidden. The common tern lays its eggs amongst rough stones, where you would think that anything so fragile as an egg would easily get broken. Near his case there is a beautiful pure white gull, who lives in the Arctic regions among the ice and snow. It is a wonderful law of Nature that birds and animals often resemble their surroundings. We have seen that the tiger is not easily seen among his bamboo-stems, and that birds the colour of sand live on sand; well in the Arctic regions, where there is perpetual ice and snow, nearly all the creatures are pure white, from the great Polar bear down to the rabbits and gulls. This is explained by the fact that if an animal is not white he shows up against the ground, and then his enemies, other animals waiting to prey upon him, see him, and catch him and eat him; so the white ones escape, and as children take after their parents they are white, too. And if one of the children happens to be darker he is quickly eaten, and his whiter brothers and sisters escape. This white gull has made a nest that looks like nothing but a muff of moss lying on very rough and sharp stones; there is not much reason why the little ones should want to climb out, at all events, while their feet are tender. Some enormous eagles attract attention: one with strong beak and claws. A condor near is one of the largest birds in the world. His native place is in South America, and at first when travellers brought accounts of this gigantic bird they were not believed; but at last someone managed to shoot one and brought it to England, so then he had to be believed. The one here in the Museum has spread his wings, and the length from end to end is larger than the tallest man. The hideous vultures near have scraggy necks, with a ruff round them. The vultures never kill animals for their own food, but live on the refuse that is left by other animals or men. The eagle is like the lion among the animals, and the vulture is like the jackal, who runs about picking up all the nasty bits no one else will have. In the cases beyond there are graceful swans and chubby ducks and flamingoes, birds whose long pink legs make them look as if they stood on painted stilts, and who have beautiful rose-coloured edges to their white wings. At the very end of the gallery there are two huge cases as big as the side of an ordinary room, and it is well to sit down here and look at them, for both are full of interest. In part of one the space is taken up with a great cliff, in which is the home of the golden eagle, wildest and most untameable of all eagles. He lives far up on lonely mountain heights, where the air is cold and pure. His great wings sail over vast dark chasms, where men have sometimes lost their lives. His eye sees an extraordinary distance, and his flight is very swift. He chooses for his home a cave or natural hole on the face of a high cliff; this is called the eyrie, and here he gathers together sticks, and odds and ends to make a kind of bedding for his young.
