BIRD STORIES 



Solomon was not wasteful about his food. He swal- 

 lowed his evening breakfast whole. That is, he swal- 

 lowed all but the tail, which was fairly long and stuck 

 out of his mouth for some time, giving him rather a 

 queer two-tailed look, one at each end! But there was 

 no one about to laugh at him, and it was, in some re- 

 spects, an excellent way to make a meal. For one thing, 

 it saved him all trouble of cutting up his food; and then, 

 too, there was no danger of his overeating, for he could 

 tell that he had had enough as long as there was n't 

 room for the tail. And after the good nutritious parts of 

 his breakfast were digested, he had a comfortable way of 

 spitting out the skin and bones all wadded together in a 

 tidy pellet. An owl is not the only kind of bird, by any 

 means, that has a habit of spitting out hard stuff that is 

 swallowed with the food. A crow tucks away many a 

 discarded cud of that sort; and even the thrush, half an 

 hour or so after a dainty fare of wild cherries, taken 

 whole, drops from his bill to the ground the pits that 

 have been squeezed out of the fruit by the digestive mill 

 inside of him. 



After his breakfast, which he ate alone in the eve- 

 ning starlight and moonlight, Solomon passed an enjoy- 

 able night; for that world, which to most of us is lost in 

 darkness and in sleep, is full of lively interest to an owl. 

 Who, indeed, would not be glad to visit his starlit king- 



166 



