QUEER PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



605 



exalted feelings often manifest themselves in a peculiar way. Some 

 receive their captor with open arms, some hug their bottles with ap- 



Fig. 9 The Wages op Sin. 



probative grunts, while others lie on the ground, contemplating the 

 sky in ecstatic silence. 



Practical naturalists are generally the most successful trappers, for 

 Lord Bacon is probably right, that observation is quite as prolific a 

 mother of inventions as necessity. Only observation could have re- 

 vealed the fact that little song-birds can be attracted by the sight of a 

 bird of prey. A common chicken-hawk will serve that purpose. Fasten 

 a tame hawk to a bush, and before the end of an hour all the finches 

 and thrushes in the township will find it out and meet in general 

 convention an indignation-meeting, perhaps though it is hard to 

 understand what they can hope to accomplish against an enemy who 

 could kill a score of them in ten minutes. But the experiment never 

 fails : a hawk, an eagle, but especially a ferocious-looking old horn- 

 owl, will allure birds at a time when they would disdain to neglect 

 their domestic business for the sake of any tidbit. An owl-riot they 

 seem to consider as a sort of public duty which must take precedence 



