The Great Horned Owl 295 
the tree. The old nest was still there, and, just to 
see in what condition it had been left after the storms 
of winter, he climbed the tree. The nest was between 
fifty and sixty feet from the ground. Just imagine the 
boy’s surprise, when about thirty feet from the nest, 
to see a Great Horned Owl silently glide off and 
wing its way through the tree tops. It was a revela- 
tion, upon reaching it, to find that a Great Horned 
Owl had really used an old crow’s nest, which had 
the appearance of being slightly remodelled and was 
sparsely lined with evergreen leaves and _ feathers. 
In the nest were three white eggs, nearly globular in 
shape and about the size of a bantam’s. The boy 
afterward learned that the usual number of eggs 
deposited by the Great Horned Owl is two, and that 
the bird sometimes constructs for itself a nest in a 
hol'ow tree or an evergreen. 
It was impossible to tell how long the bird had 
been sitting, but as the period of incubation is about 
four weeks, this fact could be approximately deter- 
mined when the eggs hatched. On the first day of 
April there were two little owls in the nest, and a day 
later a third appeared. They were queer looking 
little birds seeming to be nearly all head and eyes, 
and their bodies were covered with the softest of 
down, 
