296 The Great Horned Owl 
The young birds grew very slowly, although the 
remains of fish, mice, squirrels, rabbits, and _ birds 
of various kinds furnished abundant evidence that 
the old birds were lavish in supplying them with food. 
They remained in the nest for about eleven weeks—- 
a long time in comparison with most of our birds, 
many young birds leaving the nest in from twelve 
to fifteen days, and the woodcock, bob white, and 
ruffed grouse in about as many hours. 
During all this time the boy saw very little of the 
parent birds, which was a great disappointment; but 
from the few glimpses which he succeeded in getting 
he learned several interesting things. He had always 
been told that owls could not see in the daytime. 
One day he approached the nesting tree very cau- 
tiously, but the old bird on the nest evidently saw him, 
for it immediately flew into a small cluster of hem- 
locks some little distance away. Again the boy 
tried to approach the bird, but with little better success; 
finally, however, he succeeded in getting close enough 
to see the owl walk back and forth on a limb, ruffling 
its feathers very much after the fashion of a strutting 
turkey cock. This was probably from anger rather 
than anything else. The bird soon flew, and this 
time it went so far into the thick hemlocks as to be 
lost to view. This and other similar circumstances 
