SCREECH OWL 175 



about or behind eye, banded in rear by a pretty broad 

 (one third of an inch) and quite conspicuous perpendic- 

 ular dark-hrown stripe. Egret/ say one and a quarter 

 inches long, sharp, triangular, reddish-brown without 

 mainly. It lay crowded in that small space, with its 

 tail somewhat bent up and one side of its head turned 

 up with one egret, and its large dark eye open only by 

 a long slit about a sixteenth of an inch wide; visible 

 breathing. After a little while I put in one hand and 

 stroked it repeatedly, whereupon it reclined its head a 

 little lower and closed its eye entirely. Though curious 

 to know what was under it, I disturbed it no farther 

 at that time. 



In the meanwhile, the crows were making a great 

 cawing amid and over the pine-tops beyond the swamp, 

 and at intervals I heard the scream of a hawk, proba- 

 bly the surviving male hen-hawk, whom they were pes- 

 tering (unless they had discovered the male screech 

 owl), and a part of them came cawing about me. This 

 was a very fit place for hawks and owls to dwell in, — 

 the thick woods just over a white spruce^ swamp, in 

 which the glaucous kalmia grows; the gray squirrels, 

 partridges, hawks, and owls, all together. It was prob- 

 ably these screech owls which I heard in moonlight 

 nights hereabouts last fall. 



Returning by owl's nest, about one hour before sun- 

 set, I climbed up and looked in again. The owl was gone, 



1 [Wilson used the term " egret " for the " ears," or " horns," of the 

 owls.] 



2 [Black spruce. See note, p. 184.] 



