AMONG MY TENANTS. 137 



and was loath to turn back inside the dark hole 

 — such a close stuffy place — when outside there 

 were the rich green leaves of the tree, the sweet 

 breath of the hayfield and the gentle breeze just 

 springing up ; all the warmth and sunshine and 

 fragrance of the fields. How could she ever 

 leave to go below ? Perhaps she bethought her 

 that soon the dark hole would be a home ring- 

 ing with the voices of her little ones; at all 

 events, she quickly turned and disappeared in her 

 nest. 



At the foot of the ranch I discovered a comi- 

 cal, sleepy little brown owl, dozing in a sycamore 

 window. When we waked it up, it went back- 

 ing down the hole. I wondered if it kept awake 

 all day without food, for surely owl children do 

 not get many meals by daylight. I spoke to the 

 ranchman's son about it, and he said he thought 

 the old birds fed the young too much, that he 

 had found about a dozen small kangaroo rats 

 and mice in their holes! He told me that he 

 had known old owls to change places in the day- 

 time, and both birds to stay in the hole during 

 the day. Down the valley, where an old well 

 was only partly covered over, at different times 

 he had found a number of drowned owls. They 

 seemed to fly into any dark hole that offered. 

 Three barn owls had been taken from a wind- 

 mill tank in the neighborhood in about a month. 

 In a mine at Escondido the man had found a 



