MEANS OF FLIGHT IN THE OWLS. 4] 
weakness of the same parts in the slow-flying, noiseless-winged 
Owlet. If our young friends are disposed to add, in their 
collection of birds’ eggs, the so-called merry-thought of each 
separate bird to the eggs laid by that bird, they will be apt to 
learn an interesting and instructive lesson in elementary 
anatomy. And sucha collection may be made to a great extent, 
without much trouble, by almost every one who has the ordinary 
facilities of a residence in the country at his command. 
Having said so much to show how even the most simple and 
ebvious and familiar differences in the bone structure of birds 
suggests, or, if not, confirms the principle of classification of 
birds, and therefore of their eggs, let us now go on to notice 
our quaint “feathered friends,” the Owls, and especially our 
more familiar acquaintance among them. There are other things 
belonging to the Owl family, which our sharp young friend just 
named would have just as little trouble in picking out from a 
heap of similar objects, as in the case of the bones. I mean 
the eggs. The same character, however much they vary in size— 
and they do vary vastly in size—is common to every one of the eggs. 
They are all white ; they are all very slightly oval, or very nearly 
round, and you cannot tell which is meant to be the big end, and 
which the little. Of course, this being the case, it would be of 
very little use to take up the small space available for illustration 
in this book, with representations of Owls’ eggs; and for the same 
reason, as little as possible will be said in the way of description. 
Any Owl’s eggs which are likely to come under the notice of the 
school-boy nest-hunter will tell hima good deal about their origin, by 
their size and the place they are found in; and the best picture and 
description possible would not be able to teach him halfas much. 
Just as the bones, noticed a page or two back, would be found 
to show that there was a sort of approach to something like a 
