OWL SECRETS 
295 
I were rounding up our Red-tail nests. It was the twelfth 
of April, late in the day, and, after some successes, we had 
driven up a wood road to the borders of a swampy tract of 
very tall white pines on the borders of Lakeville and Taun¬ 
ton, Massachusetts. On one of the tallest of these trees, nearly 
eighty feet from the ground, a pair of Red-tails had built, the 
preceding year, an enormous nest, which we hoped again to 
find occupied. Here it was, at length, larger, apparently, 
than ever, and from it fluttered the telltale down. Four 
resounding blows of a club upon the thick trunk rang out; 
then was heard a commotion up above, and out flapped a 
great bird with a big round head. I could hardly believe my 
eyes. It was not the expected Red-tail, but a Great Horned 
Owl! And there were the white egg-shells under the tree, 
which, with spattered droppings in a circle around the base, 
betokened the presence of young. 
Neither of us could ascend the tree, but my companion 
mounted the next one, which had limbs, some eighty feet, 
whence he could see the young owls huddled together. 
Meanwhile the mother owl — for only one appeared — gave 
a most interesting entertainment. She flew uneasily from tree 
to tree, sometimes going off for quite a flight, to return in 
a circle to the same spot. Keeping for the most part about a 
gunshot away, she occasionally came quite near, sometimes 
balancing for a moment on the tip-top twig of a tall pine, 
until it settled down beneath her weight. 
It was an entertainment of sound, as well as of sight. Con¬ 
spicuous above the hubbub of the mobbing crows came the 
impressive sepulchral tones of the owl. Sometimes it was 
a single hoot, — “ Whoo-o ; ” again it was two of these notes, 
repeated rather deliberately; then it would be one prolonged 
note and two quicker and shorter, as heard from the moun¬ 
tain. Another frequent note was a single soft cooing sound. 
