WAYS OF THE OWL. 323 



two or three times, hooting will surely call them within short 

 range. 



Although game birds usually avoid the owl on account of my 

 presence, a grouse with a large brood of young on one occasion 

 showed much courage in watching Puffy. Her chicks scattered, 

 but she remained in sight, whining and trailing her wings and do- 

 ing her best to entice the owl away from the spot. Once she came 

 within ten paces of him, her tail spread like a fan and her wings 

 arched like an angry hen's. Puffy paid little attention to her, but 

 seemed to be looking for the chicks which he had heard stirring 

 in the leaves. Whenever he hopped she rushed into view, whin- 

 ing. She remained near by during the whole of twenty minutes 

 that I spent in her domain. 



In July, 1891, Puffy had a face-to-face meeting with a wild 

 barred owl. Puffy was perched upon a stump facing a hemlock 

 forest. Suddenly he became rigid and assumed a very unusual 

 attitude for him, his head being thrust forward and his body flat- 

 tened so that his breast rested upon the stump. Following the di- 

 rection of his steady gaze, I saw a fine specimen of his race in the 

 dark forest. He was as rigid as Puffy. How long they would 

 have glared at each other I cannot tell, for it began to rain, and 

 the stranger flew away. 



The hearing of all species of owls known to me is marvelously 

 keen ; so keen, in fact, that I know of no way of testing it, since it is 

 so much more acute than that of man. If owls have the sense of 

 smell, I am unable to find satisfactory evidence of it. I have tried 

 various experiments with them, hoping to prove that they could 

 smell, but the results are all negative. They dislike putrid meat, 

 but they bite it to ascertain its condition. They will not eat toads 

 or frogs which yield an unpleasant odor, but they did not reject 

 these species until they had tested them by tasting. They may be 

 ever so hungry, yet they do not suspect the presence of food if it 

 is carefully covered so that they can not see it. This test I have 

 applied with the utmost care to the great-horned, snowy, and 

 barred owls. The latter are shrewd enough to learn my ways of 

 hiding their food, and when they suspect its presence they will 

 search in the places where I have previously hidden it, pouncing 

 upon pieces of wrapping-paper, and poking under feathers and ex- 

 celsior with amusing cunning. I tested them with the fumes of 

 camphor, ammonia, and other disagreeable and unusual smells, 

 but they failed to show that they perceived them unless the fumes 

 were strong enough to affect their breathing or to irritate their 

 eyes. Finally, I put a cat in a basket and placed the basket be- 

 tween the two owls. They were utterly indifferent to it until the 

 cat made the basket rock, when both of them fled precipitately, and 

 could not be induced to go near the basket again. Although Puffy 



