314 WILD WINGS 



tracts, often in the heart of some g-reat swamp or on a wild 

 mountain-side, and lays its large white eggs — usually but 

 two — in the bitterest winter weather, usually the latter part 

 of February, or by the \ery first of March, From boyhood 

 my feeling has been that it was a supreme triumph of an 

 ornithologist's fteld-work to trace out the great feathered tiger 

 to its lair, and in particular to discover its nest. And when 

 came the era of hunting birds with a camera, my highest ideal 

 of attaining the dizzy pinnacle of success was to be able to 

 photograph the Great Horned Owl, wild and free, by or upon 

 its nest. 



How vividly I recall the excitement of the discovery of my 

 first Great Horned Owl's eggs. It was in a wild region of 

 extensive pine swamps in southeastern Massachusetts. A cer- 

 tain farmer for thirty years back had heard the hootings of 

 a pair of these owls from a lonely swamp, where there still 

 remained a rare tract of virgin timber. I asked him to try 

 and locate them for me that winter by their hootings, so that 

 I might find their nest in the spring. 



The tinn' came, at length, for the hunt. It was the eighth 

 of March, a fine bright day. Early in the morning 1 drove 

 the eight miles over rough, frozen roads, through a country 

 of pine tracts and cedar swamps, to the retired farm. The 

 owner told me that lumbermen had been cutting of^ the old 

 swamp, but that the owls had hooted frequently in another 

 tract of woods in the opposite direction, where he could often 

 hear the crows mobiiing them. 



Taking him as guide, we struck into these woods, which 

 consisted of tall pines and deciduous timber on swamjDy land, 

 with considerable undergrowth of bushes and horse-briars. 

 Our course was well taken, for we had not gone a half-mile 

 before a Great Horned Owl flapped majestically out from 

 a tree before us, scaled down toward the ground, and soared 



