3 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



will put a cat to flight when on his mettle, Fluffy is frightened al- 

 most out of his wits by them. 



A Japanese toy-bird, made of a piece of wood and a few scar- 

 let feathers, was eagerly seized by Puffy, indicating not only a lack 

 of power of smell, but the presence of an appreciation of color. I 

 have fancied that an appreciation of color is also shown by barred 

 owls in their frequent selection of beech trees as nesting-places, by 

 great-horned owls in their choice of brown-trunked trees, and by 

 Snowdon in an apparent preference for gray backgrounds. 



To this real or imaginary ability of the owls to select protect- 

 ive backgrounds is to be joined an undoubted power of assuming 

 protective shapes. My great-horned owl can vary at will from a 

 mass of bristling feathers a yard wide, swaying from side to side 

 as he rocks from one foot to the other, to a slim, sleek, brown post 

 only a few inches wide, with two jagged points rising from its up- 

 per margin. When blown out and defiant, his bill is snapping like 

 a pair of castanets, and his yellow eyes are opening and shutting 

 and dilating and contracting their pupils in a way worthy of a 

 fire-breathing Chinese dragon. In repose he is neither inflated 

 nor sleek, but a well-rounded, comfortable mass of feathers. The 

 barred owls go through the same processes of expanding and arch- 

 ing out their wings when awaiting attack, and of drawing all their 

 feathers closely to their sides when endeavoring to avoid observa- 

 tion. In one instance Puffy escaped from me in the woods, perched 

 upon a small beech stump, drew his feathers into such a position 

 that he seemed a mere continuation of the stump, closed his feath- 

 ered eyelids until only a narrow slit remained for him to peep 

 through, and stayed perfectly stiff for an hour while I hunted 

 for him high and low. I passed by him several times without 

 bringing my eyes to the point of recognizing him as a living thing. 

 This power is shared by the screech-owl and the long-eared owl. 

 The plumage of the snowy owl is so solid that he seems more scaly 

 or hairy than feathered. He does not, so far as my specimen 

 shows, expand and arch his wings. Instead of standing straight 

 and becoming slim and rigid, he crouches and flattens himself 

 when seeking concealment. I can imagine him in his Labrador 

 wilds crouching thus amid a waste of junipers and reindeer moss, 

 and baffling the eye which sought to detect him there. 



The control which owls have and exercise over their feathers 

 is not limited to moments when they wish to appear terrible or 

 inconspicuous. They seem to ruffle them or smooth them, ex- 

 pand them or withdraw them in queer ways at pleasure. The 

 barred owls, when stepping stealthily across a floor after a dead 

 mouse drawn by a thread, tuck up their feathers as neatly as a 

 woman hold her skirts out of the mud. When eating, the feathers 

 nearest the mouth are pulled aside in a most convenient way. 



