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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and king-lets enticed me into the darkest part of the growth. The 

 birds were greatly excited, and as I softly drew near them I saw 

 that they were in a circle, all facing toward some focus invisible 

 to me. I crept farther, and saw the tail of a small owl projecting- 

 from behind the trunk of a tree. Presently his tiny monkey 

 face was screwed around over his back, and his timid yellow eyes 

 fixed themselves upon me. His tormentors soon flew away, and 

 after studying me attentively for some time the little Acadian 

 floated off out of sight also. 



The young screech-owl, whose death at his brother's hands I 

 have already mentioned, irritated the birds of the forest and 

 meadow in the same way. I placed him, one morning, upon a, 

 birch tree which was in use by a family of yellow-billed wood- 

 peckers as a sap-drinking place. The sap-suckers made a great 

 clamor on seeing him, and their cries called together all the birds 

 which were within earshot. At least thirty individuals came, in- 

 cluding kingbirds, cuckoos, catbirds, veeries, chickadees, four or 



Great-horned and Sxowdox. 



five kinds of warblers, red-eyed vireos, song-sparrows, and two 

 humming-birds. Having scolded for nearly ten minutes, they 

 departed, leaving a sap-sucker and a humming-bird, which soon 

 forgot the owl and resumed their usual employment of drinking 

 the birch tree's sap. 



Several times during the summer of 1891 I took my snowy 

 owl out to walk. He weighs three and a half pounds, so the task 

 of carrying him by hand upon an outstretched stick was rather 

 a laborious one. The birds noticed him at once, and scolded as 

 though he were of a species with which they were unpleasantly 

 familiar, instead of one with which they were presumably wholly 



