194 Bird - Lore 



picked it off as freely as ever. On our way home the bird put his head under 

 his wing and then it was at once noticed that the wound on the top of the 

 head and the one in front of the chest bore such a relation to each other it 

 seemed reasonable to suppose an Owl had tried to catch the Tanager with 

 his claws, while the latter was asleep, his head under his wing. We put the 

 bird to bed that night but the next day he was dead. 



This same spring, off on a day's outing, just as we crossed the West Shore 

 railroad, a small huddled-up mass of feathers, at the end of a sleeper, took 

 shape as we looked, and became a little Screech Owl. One of us was able to 

 put his cap over the bird. We then found that one wing had been recently 

 torn off, and the lids of the eye on the opposite side were tightly closed. The 

 eyeball itself had been crushed and was badly inflamed. It seemed likely 

 that the bird had flown into the headlight of a passing engine a night or so 

 before, and had thus received his injuries. After we reached home we placed 

 him on an andiron, and as long as he was with us he made the fireplace his 

 home. The little Owl grabbed the first dead mouse handed to him, even though 

 a house mouse, as if he had seen one before. All his movements were delib- 

 erate after he actually had his prey within his grasp, but up to that moment 

 they had been as quick as the proverbial flash of light. He enjoyed sitting on 

 the back of a chair and looking slowly around the room. First he would 

 stare for a time at one thing, and then, with all the deliberation in the world, 

 change his gaze to something else. His single wide open eye and a certain 

 lopsidedness, owing to the loss of a wing, made him present a strange appear- 

 ance, as he sat and stared one out of countenance. He would drop like light- 

 ning upon a small bunch of brown cloth drawn with a jumping motion across 

 the floor, but what excited him intensely was scratching on any rough cloth 

 or a noise like the sc^ueak of a mouse. When we gave him a dead English 

 Sparrow, he would settle himself upon his andiron, and then pull out the stiff 

 wing and tail feathers, one or two at a time ; then pull off the head, crush it 

 and swallow it whole; after this, by degrees, he would pull the bird into shreds 

 and gulp them down. 



This Owl was tame from the first and would sit on a finger and look about, 

 as if he had been long accustomed to the procedure. After he had been with 

 us for some time, we commenced setting him upon a lilac bush by the piazza, 

 to get the air. While our backs were turned one day, he dropped off the bush 

 and ran away. Although we hunted diligently for him, we never found him. 

 I am afraid that, in his incapacitated condition, after he deserted his home, his 

 time was short. 



It was a remarkable fact that aU of these birds took the food offered them 

 with such readiness and were so submissive in their new environment. This 

 was particularly true in the case of the Owls, and it was quite surprising that 

 the old Crow became so friendly. The dociUty of the Scarlet Tanager may 

 possibly be ascribed to stupidity, but not so with the Crow. It is really hard 



