WILD WINGS 
294 
not for me to assume what the Psalmist attributes to the 
Creator, — “I know all the fowls of the mountains.” 
Because the doings of the owl are shrouded in mystery and 
his ways almost past finding out, the spell of the secret things 
is upon me and has inspired many a wild ramble, aggregating 
thousands of miles. My earliest searchings for the mysterious 
owl were in and around the outskirts of Boston. Ever mem¬ 
orable was my first view of an owl in nature. It was many 
years ago, a cold, blustering morning in early March. Trav¬ 
ersing a frozen cedar swamp on the shore of Hammond’s 
Pond, Newton, my heart fairly bounded as I came right upon 
a tiny little Acadian or Saw-whet Owl lying prone upon a 
spreading cedar bough just over my head, sound asleep, — 
pretty, cunning creature ! 
Only a few owl episodes in those days were vouchsafed 
me, — a glimpse of a Long-eared Owl one fall in the same 
swamp, mobbed by crows ; a nest of the Great Horned Owl 
in Canton, with one quaint, fuzzy youngster ; one of a Barred 
Owl in Sharon, deserted before the eggs were laid ; another 
Barred Owl prowling in a Brookline orchard; a Snowy Owl 
on the Back-Bay marsh one winter; a Short-eared Owl on 
Thompson’s Island, Boston Harbor ; a red Screech Owl in 
the outskirts of Brookline ; these treats were about all. But 
subsequent residence in old Plymouth County, with its many 
fine groves of tall pines and its lonely swamps, and more 
recently among the rugged Taconic Mountains of western 
Connecticut, together with various expeditions north, west, 
and south, have furnished far more extensive opportunities 
for acquaintance with owl secrets, especially with those de¬ 
partments, most recondite of all, the nesting of owls and the 
photographing of them from life. 
As I think how delightfully owling and hawking some¬ 
times converge, I love to recall a day when a friend and 
