216 General Notes. [^ 



gate an owl hooted and flew close by my head, and then, after a minute, 

 flew back again. I thought nothing of it, until, a few evenings later, 

 my cook came in much frightened and said she had been hit in the head 

 by a bat. She had been about where I was when the owl flew past me, 

 and her description of the sound it made seemed to make it more probable 

 that it was an owl than a bat. A few days later she was struck again 

 as she walked down the avenue, and both times the skin was broken in 

 several places on the side of her head, and the blow was severe enough 

 to be painful for some days. We soon heard from all our neighbors stories 

 of how, as they passed our gate, the owl flew out and struck them, and 

 almost every evening we could hear some signal of distress from the 

 unwary passers-by, such as, 'Look out for the bird!' or 'What is it? Is 

 it a bat?' One man, I was told, had his eyelids seriously cut. 



"One evening as I sat in the house I heard what seemed to be an un- 

 usual disturbance among the owls, and I wondered if the young ones 

 might be learning to fly. So I walked down about half way to the gate, 

 with a friend, taking the precaution to put hoods over our heads. We 

 stood there for a few minutes, listening, and then, as it was hot, I dropped 

 back my hood. In an instant, with an angry cry, the owl struck me 

 on the side of the forehead, leaving three or four scratches. I had no 

 time to see the bird, but some days later I had a fairly good view of it, 

 as it flew over me to an elm tree on the hill opposite our house. It seemed 

 to me then to have the appearance and usual size of the Screech Owls 

 which we see often about here. 



"One evening, about June 25, a number of people came up, protected 

 by baseball masks or hoods, to investigate the whereabouts of the owl's 

 nest, which appeared to be in the clump of trees along the wall at the 

 foot of the hill, and directly opposite our gate. Two boys in the party 

 threw stones at the trees to start out the owls, and the bird showed off 

 as usual, striking several persons in the head. But the next morning, 

 Mr. Ferguson, who keeps a tub of water for his cow under the trees where 

 the owls seemed to live, brought in the body of an owl which had appar- 

 ently been drowned, as it was found in the tub. Nobody knows any- 

 thing of the manner of its death and the boys, whom I questioned, said 

 they did not, to their knowledge, hit any of the owls. But I could not 

 help feeling that the poor bird had been struck by one of their stones, 

 and fallen, stunned, into the water. Since then we have heard nothing 

 of the owls except what appeared to be an unwonted crying of the little 

 ones for the next week or two, and I supposed that they were hungry, 

 for, though they could fly, they probably were not yet trained to find 

 their own food." 



I have some further notes concerning this family of owls from Mrs. 

 Alfred Worcester of Waltham who, in company with several friends, 

 visited the Manse on the evening of June 26. The party had provided 

 themselves with fencing masks, which proved useful, as will appear from 

 her account of the experience, which is as follows: — 



