SOME SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS 169 
except in the brightest weather. On cloudy days it 
flies low over the meadows, in which it searches carefully 
for its food. On the wing, it is easy and graceful, its flight 
being more like that of a Hawk than the heavy swoop of 
the Owl. Its wings are long in proportion to its body, 
which makes it appear very large when in flight. 
“The Short-eared Owls delight in carrying their food to 
a hayrick or some such object, where they eat it at leisure. 
This same food of the Short-eared Owl, in itself, is a let- 
ter of recommendation, —for it consists of meadow-mice, 
gophers, and shrews (that are such a nuisance in the West), 
grasshoppers, insects, and occasionally a bird, — so that, 
like the Barn Owl and the Long-eared or Cat Owl, his 
brother, this bird deserves full protection. 
“‘ Another cause has done many an owl to death, — not his 
‘fatal gift of beauty,’ that has made so many birds become 
bonnet martyrs, but the fact that the Owl looks so wise that 
he was supposed to be the favourite bird of Minerva, the 
goddess of wisdom. For this reason, people like to have 
stuffed Owls in their libraries to sit and look wise on a 
bookease top. 
“Thus many of the birds that have escaped the farmers 
have been shot by collectors for the taxidermists or bird- 
store folk. Now the Wise Men are making laws which will, 
we hope, protect the useful birds of prey from this fate as 
they do the beautiful songsters; but it is not enough to 
make laws, it is the business of each one of us to see that 
they are carried out. 
“T have a very amusing poem about an Owl in my 
scrap-book. When you have read it, you may guess, if 
you can, to which Owl the author refers.”’ 
