BARRED OWLS IN CAPTIVITY 121 



most of them flying very liigli. I saw none be- 

 fore 9 A. M. or after 2.15 P. M. I think Puffy 

 saw every one of them. It mattered not whether 

 they came singly or in bunches of twenty to forty, 

 his ever ready eye was upon them as soon as they 

 came into view. In spite of this marvelous 

 power of detecting moving objects in a bright 

 light, my pets often utterly ignore some dainty 

 morsel merely because it does not move. Their 

 sense of smell is either weak or uncertain in its 

 action. Their hearing on the other hand is acute, 

 although not depended upon in the same degree 

 as their sight. 



Of the various families of birds which Puffy 

 annoyed during the summer of 1889, none 

 were more distressed ahd angered by his pres- 

 ence than the woodpeckers, thrushes, and vireos. 

 In every hemlock swamp the yellow-breasted 

 woodpeckers and flickers said their say against 

 his character with petulant emphasis. The 

 flickers often flew close to his head. Downies 

 and hairies liked him no better, but were less 

 demonstrative. It was when a venerable and 

 fiery-tempered logcock caught sight of him on 

 August 21, that the full force of woodpecker 

 eloquence w^as let out. Puffy seemed to recog- 

 nize a hereditary foe, for before the pileated 

 came into my view, the owl suddenly changed 

 his appearance from rough-feathered and sleepy 



