"for some years a pair of barred owls nested in the cavity of an oak" 



CHAPTER XVI 



OWL SECRETS 



The night-owl, hushed and tranced, hates 

 Its cry, and in the darkness waits. 



Stephen Henry Thayer. 



CLOSELY related to the sport of " hawking" is that of 

 " owling." Indeed the latter is properly a department 

 of the former, and in some measure is to be carried 

 on along with it. It is really much the more difficult of the 

 two, for the owl has the faculty and habit of so closely safe- 

 guarding its secrets — its domestic afl[airs in particular — 

 that, to the enthusiastic bird-lover or camera-hunter who 



