232 Birds Every Child Should Know 



returned to the bird house and raised a family 

 of funny, fluffy, plump little owlets. 



This boy discovered for himself the screech 

 owls' strange characteristic of changing their 

 colour without changing their feathers, as 

 moulting song birds change theirs. They have 

 a rusty, reddish-brown phase and a mottled- 

 gray phase. So far as is known, these changes 

 of colour are not dependent upon age, sex, or 

 season. No one understands what causes them 

 or what they mean. Sometimes the same family 

 will contain birds with plumage that is rusty- 

 brown or gray or intermediate. But you may 

 always know a screech owl by its small size (it 

 is only about as long as a robin) and by the ear 

 tufts that make it look wide-awake and very 

 wise. 



By day it keeps well hidden in some deserted 

 woodpecker's hole or a hollow in some old 

 orchard tree, which is its favourite residence; 

 but some mischievous little birds, with sharper 

 eyes than ours, often discover its hiding place, 

 wake it up, and chase it, blinking and bewil- 

 dered, all about the farm. By night, when its 

 tormentors are asleep, this little owl goes forth 

 for its supper, and then we hear its weird, 

 sweet, shivering, tremulous cry. Because it 

 lives near our homes and is, perhaps, the com- 

 monest of the owls all over our country, every 

 child can know it by sound, if not by sight. 



