BIRDS OF PREY 167 
to three and a half weeks. Mr. Bendire says it is not 
unusual for the last eggs to hatch two weeks after the 
first. The young owls are covered with a whitish gray 
‘or brown cottony down, and have the hooked bill and 
talons of the adults. They stay in the nest until seven 
weeks old. At four weeks old, a young Barn Owl will 
tear a gopher as fiercely as an adult, swallowing it fur 
and all. The noise of a family of these hungry young 
birds in a tree can be compared to nothing, for it is like 
nothing else. As soon as they discover, by some occult 
sense, that the adult is on the way home with supper, the 
hissing and shrieking begin, and are kept up all night 
long. 
When the nestlings are seven or eight weeks old, the 
first lesson in hunting is given early in the evening, and 
the young owls flit about with the adults on noiseless 
wings like roly-poly bats. 
They soon learn to imitate the ludicrous attitude of 
the parent as, bolt upright, with half-closed eyelids, it 
blinks at the daylight, looking as wise as a sage and as 
comical as a monkey. 
Except in the breeding season these owls are gre- 
garious, and an old belfry is often the home of from ten 
to twenty inhabitants. Besides its screech, the Barn 
Owl has a nasal snore. 
