CHAPTER VIII 



Unusual Experiences Afield 



IN COMPANY with half a dozen other women, 

 I was driving home from a near-by village 

 where we had spent the night with a friend. 

 We stopped and watched, until we had no more 

 time to spend, a sight as unusual as I ever have 

 seen in the woods. In a dense piece of woods 

 well toward the foot of the Limberlost country, on 

 a heavy limb topping a stack of wind-fall brush 

 there perched the biggest and oldest great horned 

 owl of my experience. Because I was so par- 

 ticularly interested in birds, my friends waited 

 while I climbed the snake fence and cautiously 

 crept through the woods until, screened by the 

 thicket only a few yards away, I could distinctly 

 see what was going on. Again, I had no camera 

 with me, and there was too much shade for the 

 constant motion of the subject besides. The owl 

 was in some physical trouble — just what, I could 

 not discover, but he had every appearance of being 

 almost ready to die of old age. In a long, well-fed 

 life, he had grown to magnificent proportions, 

 which probably appeared double, because every 

 feather on him was standing on end. These 



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