SOME SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS 165 
To this she answered 
Not one breath; 
But sat unmoved 
And still as death. 
Said he, ‘I guess that she’s the kind 
That people in museums find ; 
Some taxidermist by his skill 
Has stuffed the bird, she sits so still. 
Ah me! that eyes 
Once made to see 
Should naught 
But ghostly spectres be.” 
At this she dropped her haughty head 
And cried, “I’m neither stuffed nor dead. 
Oh! weird and melancholy owl, 
Thou rival of the wolf’s dread howl, 
Since fate so planned, 
I'll not decline 
To be for life 
Your valentine.” 
— Fiorence A. VAN Sant, in Bird-Lore. 
“‘ Are any of these other Owls here useful ?”’ asked Sarah, 
who had been looking at the birds in the glass case while 
Gray Lady talked. ‘This great big one with feather 
horns looks as if he could eat a little lamb or a big rooster 
if he tried.” 
“That is the Great Horned Owl,” said Gray Lady, 
“and fortunately he is very uncommon here in New Eng- 
land, for he is a cruel and wasteful bird, unsociable and 
sulky, killing chickens, and even turkeys and geese, and 
often merely eating the head of its victim and then killing 
