78 Baby Birds at Home 



slumber with closed eyes in some shady 

 place until dusk. Their sight is specially 

 adapted for seeing things in half darkness, 

 and they easily capture small birds roosting 

 in trees and bushes. This is why blackbirds, 

 chaffinches, and other feathered dwellers in 

 woods mob the Brown Owl when they come 

 upon him asleep by day. 



An owl's feathers are covered with fine 

 soft down. For this reason you do not hear 

 the bird's wings when it flies close over your 

 head, and it is enabled to steal upon its prey 

 unnoticed. 



The Brown Owl does not make a nest 

 of any kind. It lays its three or four white 

 eggs in a hollow tree, cleft of rock in a cliff, 

 or a hole in the wall of some old building. 



Baby owls are clothed in beautiful white 

 fluffy down, and when you find a brood of 

 these chicks, you will notice that they all 

 differ in size, just as the members of a family 

 of four or five boys and girls do. The fact 

 is, owls do not lay their eggs as quickly as 

 other birds. They rest two or three days 

 between each, and in consequence, the first 

 chick is hatched quite a long time before 

 the last one of the brood. 



