96 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



half a mile distant, the owl family would again 

 be out on their verandah taking the sun. 



A year passed away before I was able to meet 

 some little ground owls face to face. A young 

 friend had discovered a nesting pair early in the 

 season and had kept in touch with their house- 

 keeping. To facilitate matters he dug out the 

 nest; and then having satisfied his thirst for 

 research in that line, he placed two stove-pipe 

 lengths in the original tunnel and covered it with 

 earth again. The parents took kindly to the new 

 style of domestic architecture and soon their ten 

 youngsters filled the home. As they grew, they 

 became kindly disposed little fellows, and he 

 used to visit them often and set them up in a 

 wondering row and take pictures of them. So 

 when one day, early in July, I found op- 

 portunity to call upon them, they were quite 

 well accustomed to being interviewed. There 

 were but three of the ten left. 



As in the case of most of the birds ofprey, the 

 young mature unevenly; those left behind were 

 the belated members of the large family. This 

 does not mean that they were runts or weaklings, 

 or that they had been neglected; they were 

 merely the products of the last eggs of the 



