3 i6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but later experiments showed that Snowdon had no ill feeling to- 

 ward the barred owls, and ignored them even when they stole his 

 portion of the food. It is now six months since I turned them in 

 together, and during the whole of that time the four birds have 

 been on terms of quiet indifference. 



About the middle of September, 1891, a Boston dealer sent me 

 a mature great-horned owl. He reached my country place just 

 in time to be sent back to Cambridge with the snowy and barred 

 owls. Clipping one of his great wings, I placed him with the 



others in the 250 square feet of 

 cellar space fenced off for them. 

 Puffy prepared for war, Fluffy 

 fled, Prince Edward regarded the 

 stranger with indifference, and 

 Snowdon and the great - horned 

 formed an alliance at once. Three 

 months have passed, and, so far as 

 I know, no conflict has occurred. 

 The older barred owls fear and dis- 

 like the great-horned. Prince Ed- 

 ward treats him with brassy famil- 

 iarity, and Snowdon stays with him 

 in the corner of the cellar farthest 

 from the favorite perch of the 

 barred owls. 



Having introduced my charac- 

 ters, I will now compare them in 

 several particulars. They arrange 

 themselves, when I think of them 

 as owls merely, into two groups the brown owls and the gray 

 owls. The great-horned, long-eared, screech, and Acadian owls 

 seem to me much alike in disposition and their way of meeting 

 man. They seem like kindred. 



The barred and snowy owls, while quite different from the 

 brown owls, are somewhat alike in temper. They show fight 

 when approached, and are very alert. The barred owls make 

 several different sounds expressive of various emotions. They 

 snap their beaks furiously when warning an enemy ; they whine 

 when hungry ; they make a soft, rather musical " oo " when meet- 

 ing after an absence ; they chatter with rage when pulling in op- 

 posite directions on the same bird or mouse ; and they hoot when 

 expressing the sentiments which make the domestic cock crow. 

 While young they make a queer chuckling chatter when cuddled, 

 and as the sound grows faint it suggests the music of a brood of 

 chickens nestling under their mother's feathers. The hooting 

 varies. In the August twilight I often hear the loud trumpeting 



Great-horned on a Stump, 



