194 Birds I Have Kept. 



cannot see the likeness, not a bit of it, but possibly other 

 people might: some, I know, are great adepts at this sort of 

 thing. 



Other Owls that I have seen contract the pupil of the eye 

 to the merest point in full daylight, and seem blunt-witted 

 and dazed even then, but Coquimbo does not, he looks boldly 

 about him in the day-time, and very evidently sees all that 

 is going on, recognizing a stranger directly, and especially a 

 marauding cat, which he certainly does not confound with his 

 quondam friend and neighbour the marmot or prairie dog. 



I don't know that I should again choose an Owl for a pet, 

 but chance having thrown Coquimbo in my way, I was taken 

 by his funny habit of spreading out his wings and swearing 

 at me when I looked at him, and as Mr. A. H. Jamrach asked 

 me a reasonable price for him, I brought him home to add 

 to my list of birds. By-the-bye I find I have called the 

 "bird ''he" after all — so be it, perhaps he is a male. 



Coquimbo developes new and peculiar qualities every day, 

 he really is, as the late Artemus Ward used to observe of his 

 "Kangaroo", "an amoosin little cuss"; the way he hops about 

 and then comes back and stares at one is enough to cause 

 the most melancholy Jacques to split his sides with laughing; 

 then his appetite is so good, and all seems fish that comes 

 to his net. Por instance, our old cat kittened the other day, 

 and her progeny met the usual fate of so many juvenile 

 members of the feline race, an untimely end in the water- 

 tub, but probably their after destiny was different to anything 

 that had previously befallen kittens; for one of them formed 

 a capital supper for my Burrowing Owl, which he seemed 

 most heartily to enjoy, and he should have had the others 

 only they were buried away out of sight before I thought of 

 Becuring them. 



It was a good-sized kitten, and fat, and was almost too 

 much for Coquimbo to demolish at one sitting; however, he 

 seemed to do his best to give it speedy and decent burial 



