TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



pr< - - crow or a swift he gives it merely a glance and 



cs a The barred owls frequently look at the sun with 



their eyes half-closed for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Why 

 the; ' I am wholly at a loss to explain. I am in doubt as 



how much Puffy can 91 ::ight. I onee held a eat within a few 



inches of him in the darkness, and he did not stir. Had he seen it 

 he would certainly have moved and probably snapped his beak. In 

 Aug - S I taftei ark on a patch, of closely cropped 



ss where the dim light enabled me to see him when he moved. 

 I went to the nearest tree and seated myself with my back against 

 ts trunk and my le r - - :ehed out before me. Half an hour 

 I moving except when a bat flew over him. 



and I keeping perfectly motionless. At last he came toward me. 

 5I0 1 1 I ime. When he was within a few feet 



I could see his outline quite plainly. One more hop brought him 



my knee, upon which he jumped. Instantly he bounded into 

 the air and made off, unnii- ly frightened. He had no idea 



that he w. - g ingi strike a leg and not a log ; yet if his eyes had 



n much keener than a man's he would have seen not only that 



theswen n tw d, but that I was leaning against the tree- 



trunk " " hing him. In several instances I have called wild 



barred owls at night and have had them alight in tree-tops close 



above me. I could see them against the sky. but apparently they 



1] 1 n t see me fitting among the brakes and bushes below them. 

 Once with an owl thus above me I imitated the squeaking cry of 

 a wounded, bird. I wished I had not. for the owl's ghostly wings 

 brushed past my socl sely that I fell back into the bushes. 



1 ing that he would strike at me again. 



The memory of my owls is noticeably good. Puffy and Fluffy, 

 the two barred owls which I have had. longest, remember their fa- 

 perches from season * season, and resume their chosen 

 roosts after months of absence. In one instance Fluffy, on his 



urn t Cambridge after four months in the mountains, flew the 

 length of the cellar, expecting to strike a perch which had been 

 removed, and, failing to find it, fell to the floor. It is only neces- 



y for me to bring a box-trap into the barn for Puffy to come 

 I :he front of his cage, eager to be given a chance to catch the 

 chipmunk which past experience leads him to believe is in it. 

 S lilar eagerness is shown in winter, when I bring a paper parcel 

 int * r, the wis knowing - -ell that it contains food that 



y will tear it open themselves if I do not open it for them. If 

 the bundle is brought in without their knowledge and thrown at 

 random upon the floor, they do not find it, and will leave it for 

 days untouched. Puffy does not like going out in my boat. If 

 he finds that I am taking him to the shore near it, he invariably 

 jumps off his stick and :o hide in the bushes. Snowdon 



