'"And that's not the worst," she went on, rummaging in a small desk which stood open and seemed to be full of old newspapers. "Read this." She handed me a cutting headed OWL BITES WOMAN, from which I read that an owl had flown in through a cottage window one evening and bitten a woman on the chin. "And this," she went on, handing me another cutting which told how a swan had knocked a girl off her bicycle. "What do you think of that?"
"Oh, I suppose they were just accidents," I said.
"Accidents! Even Miss Jessop agrees that they are rather more than accidents, don't you, Miss Jessop?"
Miss Jessop made a quavering sound which might have been "Yes" or "No" but it was not allowed to develop into speech, for Mrs. Bone broke in by telling Everard that Miss Jessop wouldn't want any sherry.
"The Dominion of the Birds," she went on. "I very much fear it may come to that."'
from Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (Chapter Sixteen)
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