3o8 
WILD WINGS 
days one of them brought the owl to my home in a paper 
bag. It was ev^ening, and I had just returned from a drive. 
I saw from the worn plumage of the bird that she was a 
mother. The boy protested that there was nothing else in the 
hole, but I knew better. Next day I had him show me the 
place. 
As I climbed the stub, I detected the odor of decay. “ Poor 
little things,” I thought; “starved!” However, 1 reached in, 
and instantly something seized the end of one of my hngers, 
and I drew out a puny, downy little owlet, hanging on for 
dear life. Again 1 put in my hand, and had another “ bite.” 
This I kept up till I had the whole brood of six. Down at the 
very bottom were six or eight mice which the mother had 
brought them, now badly decayed. The owlets were too 
young to tear them, and evidently the father had left his 
motherless children to their fate. 
Taking them home, I fed them, and put them in a box with 
their mother. Meat which I left was evidently fed to them all 
each night by the old bird. After a few nights she escaped, 
and the young were again motherless. One puny little runt 
died, but the rest flourished and made very interesting pets, 
which I photographed from time to time in their various 
stages. One of them had one eye smaller than the other, 
a deformity which I also observed in one other Screech Owl. 
Two escaped and another died, but two of them are yet alive 
and well, after three years of captivity. 
About the only way, ordinarily, of solving the Screech Owl’s 
nesting secret is to peer into everv likely tree-hollow, and now 
and then one will be rewarded. One day, the thirteenth of 
April, I glanced into a low hole in an apple-tree. Two bright 
eyes glowed like coals at the bottom, and at length I could 
make out the owl shrinking over on her side, and disclosing 
three eggs, about the size of those of jDigeons. 
