WAYS OF THE OWL. 



3*7 



" hoo " uttered at intervals of half a minute or more by wild owls 

 in the woods. The common hoot, which suggests to some ears 

 feline music, is generally "hoo-hoo hoo-h55, hoo-hoo hoo-hoo," 

 but I heard a barred owl this winter in a remote White Mount- 

 ain valley say " hoo-dS, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-00." He was 

 a conversational and inquisitive bird. By hiding in some ever- 

 greens and hooting to him I drew him little by little to the tree- 

 top just above me. 



Wholly different is the conversation of the snowy owl. His 

 warning is sometimes beak-snapping, but oftener an open- 

 mouthed, hissing " ah/' which has a most menacing cpiality. He 

 occasionally utters a shrill, whistling scream expressive of pain 

 or the fear of pain, yet he makes it also when snatching a morsel 

 of food held toward him. Thus far I have heard my great-horned 

 owl make but four sounds : terrific beak-snapping ; ah-ing quite 

 equal to Snowdon's ; a hooting which suggests wind sighing in a 

 hollow tree, and taking the form of " whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, whooo,. 

 whooo " ; and a series of soft, musical notes, rolled from his throat 

 when Snowdon comes too near his clutched breakfast. 



My barred owls eat raw butcher's meat, mice and squirrels, 

 bats, any kind of bird, hawk and crow included, fresh fish, lake 

 mussels, snakes, turtle-meat, 

 some species of frog, earth- 

 worms, some kinds of in- 

 sects, and hen's or bird's 

 eggs. They will not touch 

 toads or the frogs which se- 

 crete an offensive scent. They 

 rarely eat tainted meat or 

 stale fish. Once they played 

 for hours with a dead weasel, 

 much as a cat plays with a 

 mouse, but they did not eat 

 any part of it. They catch 

 living fish from a tank, and 

 kill mice, squirrels, birds, 

 frogs, and snakes ; but they 

 were at first greatly alarmed 



by a turtle, and a young hare running around their cage fright- 

 ened them almost into fits. Puffy will face and put to flight a cat 

 or a dog, but a pig is a terror to him. When Puffy was only six 

 months old he caught and killed a two-pound pullet, yet in March 

 and April, 1891, he roosted night after night on the same perch, 

 with an old Cochin hen which had begun her stay in his cage by 

 giving him an unmerciful trouncing. 



So far as I have been able to ascertain, Snowdon will not kill 



4., 



Snowdon on a Snow-covered Stump. 



