OWL SECRETS 295 



I were rounding up our Red-tail nests. It was the twelfth 

 of April, late in the day, and, after some successes, we had 

 driven up a wood road to the borders of a swampy tract of 

 very tall white pines on the borders of Lakeville and Taun- 

 ton, Massachusetts. On one of the tallest of these trees, nearly 

 eighty feet from the ground, a pair of Red-tails had built, the 

 preceding year, an enormous nest, which we hoped again to 

 find occupied. Here it was, at length, larger, apparently, 

 than ever, and from it fluttered the telltale down. Four 

 resounding blows of a club upon the *^hick trunk rang out ; 

 then was heard a commotion up above, and out flapped a 

 great bird with a big round head. I could hardly believe my 

 eyes. It was not the expected Red-tail, but a Great Horned 

 Owl ! And there were the white egg-shells under the tree, 

 which, with spattered droppings in a circle around the base, 

 betokened the presence of young. 



Neither of us could ascend the tree, but my companion 

 mounted the next one, which had limbs, some eighty feet, 

 whence he could see the young owls huddled together. 

 Meanwhile the mother owl — for only one appeared — gave 

 a most interesting entertainment. She flew uneasily from tree 

 to tree, sometimes going of^ for (]uite a flight, to return in 

 a circle to the same spot. Keeping for the most part about a 

 gunshot away, she occasionally came quite near, sometimes 

 balancing for a moment on the tip-top twig of a tall pine, 

 until it settled down beneath her weight. 



It was an entertainment of sound, as well as of sight. Con- 

 spicuous above the hubbub of the mobbing crows came the 

 impressive sepulchral tones of the owl. Sometimes it was 

 a single hoot, — " Whoo-o ; " again it was two of these notes, 

 repeated rather deliberately ; then it would be one prolonged 

 note and two quicker and shorter, as heard from the moun- 

 tain. Another frequent note was a single soft cooing sound. 



