CHAPTER VII 



SOME LITTLE OWLS 



THE owl family were all at home. At least 

 I judged that they all were, for as I came 

 trudging along the prairie road I counted 

 seven heads perked up around the door, and close 

 at hand, a parent, presumably the father, was 

 perched upon a fence-post. When I came within 

 forty yards of this parent sentinel, he bobbed 

 his head and emitted a warning call, and in- 

 stantly the juveniles scurried down cellar. 

 Strange manner of exit, indeed, for an owl 

 family; but these were the little burrowing owls 

 that live in a hole in the ground out on the west- 

 ern prairies. 



There was something un-owl-like about the 

 whole scene. Though the little fellow on the 

 post was dumpy in the body and big of head like 

 most of his kin, there the similarity stopped, for 

 his legs were abnormally long, and he did not sit 



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