330 CITIZEN BIRD 



" All day I stay by my nest hole in some old tree ; 

 but when others go to sleep I awake, and steal noise- 

 lessly on my rounds through barn, field, and garden. 

 What for ? For mice, moles, bats, and beetles. Some- 

 times I go a~fishing; sometimes I snatch a frog with 

 my sharp claws — the hunting Aveapons of my family. 

 Do I catch birds? Sometimes, but they are few com- 

 pared to the mice I kill. AVhen I think of mice, I 

 become a feathered cat! Do mice run fast? I fly 

 faster ! Winter or summer I always hear when a 

 mouse squeaks or a chipmunk chatters. When I swal- 

 low bones, fur, and feathers, they never give me any 

 23ain — ^no, never! I understand the science of diges- 

 tion. Instead of making my poor little stomach grind 

 up all the things I swallow, I just roll what I do not 

 care to digest into little pellets, and spit them up. If 

 you look on the ground under my home tree, you will 

 find these little balls, and by them judge of what I eat. 



" ]My family are also distinguished by two other odd 

 habits. Having two sets of eyelids, an inner and an 

 outer, we can close one or both at will. The inner one 

 is a thin skin that we blink with, and draw across our 

 eyes in the day-time when the light annoys us, just as 

 House People pull down a curtain to shut out the sun. 

 The outer lids Ave close only in sleep, when we put up 

 the shutters after a niglit's work, and at last in death — 

 for birds alone among all animals are able to close their 

 own eyes Avhen they die. The otlier habit is the trick 

 of turning our heads entirely round from front to back, 

 without wringing our necks or choking to death. This 

 we do to enable us to see in every direction, as Ave can- 

 not roll our eyes about as freely as most birds do. 



