GREAT HORNED OWLS 315 



off just over the tops of the bushes. There was no nest here, 

 so we kept on toward a clump of large pines which we could 

 just see. When we came within gunshot of it, out flew an 

 even larger owl, — the female. I hurried forward, and saw, 

 some forty feet up a yellow pine, a great nest of sticks, which 

 must have measured a yard or more across. From its edges, 

 as well as from neighboring limbs and twigs, bits of tawny 

 yellowish down were fluttering in the breeze. At last my 

 long-cherished desire was to be gratified ; I had found the 

 nest of the Great Horned Owl. Somehow the place had 

 a familiar look, and it suddenly came to me that this nest was 

 one which I had found the season before, occupied by a pair 

 of Red-tailed Hawks ; we had approached it from a new 

 direction. 



The tree was nearly limbless, and in my eagerness I was in 

 such haste that, when I reached the first limb, I was consider- 

 ably winded. A moment's rest, and then at it again, and I 

 was soon there. The great nest was quite shallow, and on the 

 comfortable lining of bark, sprays of pine foliage, owl-down, 

 and feathers lay the two great round white eggs. Meanwhile 

 the mother owl returned. She alighted upon the dead limb 

 of an enormous pine, fully one hundred feet from the ground, 

 where she stood majestically outlined against the blue sky. 

 At once a flock of crows discovered her, and began to swoop, 

 cawing excitedly. The owl would dodge, snap her bill with a 

 loud clicking sound, and now and then utter an angry " whoo- 

 whoo," her ear-tufts erected and her yellow eyes blazing with 

 indignation. Seldom have I felt more delighted and exult- 

 ant than while lingering in that tree-top in the breeze and 

 sunshine of that splendid morning of March, with the Great 

 Horned Owl, her nest and eggs before me. That same season 

 also it was my good fortune to find two other nests of this owl, 

 all in last season's nests of Red-tailed Hawks ! 



