SOME CURIOUS COCOONS 151 
ing but a disjointed skeleton and a tiny pile of 
fur. Ah, had I only known then what I dis- 
covered a year or two later the secret of that 
big hollow in the willow -tree above my little 
pile of fur and bones would easily have been 
explained, for there summer after summer sat 
the little brown screech-owl, blinking in the sun 
at her doorway, peeping through the tiny cracks 
of her closed eyelids at noon, and at midnight 
commanding a view of the entire surrounding 
sedgy swamp in her eager quest for the first un- 
fortunate shrew or deer-mouse that should peep 
its nose out of its nest or venture across the ice 
in the field of her staring vision. 
The new-fallen snow would doubtless show as 
many telltales of midnight tragedies among the 
little bead-eyed folk the tiny trail terminating in 
a drop of blood, and a suggestive ruffling of the 
surrounding snow, with its plain witness of the 
fatal swoop of " owl on muffled wing " from its 
vantage-ground here in the willow-tree. To-night 
our little deer -mouse ventured too far from its 
nest among the tussocks. To-morrow night all 
that will be left of its sprightly squeaking identity 
will be a tiny pile of fur and bones disgorged in 
the form of pellets from the open beak of the owl 
on the willow-tree. 
In regard to these specimen pellets which my 
correspondent has sent to me for identification, 
