Now do you know that though all Hawks and Owls sometimes eat other birds and help themselves to poultry from the barnyards, yet at the same time most of them are the farmer's best friends ?" "No," said Rap; "I thought they were all bad, evil birds, and that the Government often gave money to people for killing them; besides, I am sure that a Hawk took eleven of our little Chickens this very spring!" "The Wise Men have been looking up the records of these cannibals--or Birds of Prey, as they are usually called--and find that very few of them--only two or three kinds, perhaps--should be condemned to death.
The others belong to the secret guild of the Wise Watchers who, sitting silently in the shadows of the woods, or perching in the trees around the edges of fields, wait for rats, mice, moles, rabbits, gophers, beetles, cutworms, and many other creatures which destroy vegetable life.

The Wise Watchers kill these hurtful creatures, and so become the guardians of the fields." "Oh, do tell us which ones do this and which took Rap's Chickens," said Dodo, forgetting her disappointment for the time.
"I am going to make a play for you.

Some of the Owls and Hawks shall speak for themselves, and tell you about their own habits and customs.
In fact, the most familiar of these cannibals shall have a hearing this morning in the wonder room.

The American Eagle is to be the judge, and I think that, as you cannot go to the woods, you will like to come into my room to hear what they have to say." "Birds talking about themselves in the wonder room!" said Dodo in a puzzled way.
"What is a hearing ?" asked Nat.
"I know what a hearing is," said Rap.

"It is where people are accused of doing something wrong and they go down to the courthouse, and the judge hears what they have to say about it; and, if he thinks they have done the things, he binds them over for trial.