250 A Kindergarten Experiment 



trust. A realization of it all came to me with crush- 

 ing force, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of 

 guilt. 



When the first emotion had passed away, I 

 looked about for the perpetrator of the crime. 

 There he was, perched upon a bust of Caesar (I do 

 not possess one of Pallas) as if he had fled for 

 refuge to that ancient advocate of slaughter. What 

 could I do ? Logically, he was not to blame ; he 

 had only followed out his natural instincts, and I had 

 enabled him to do so. Investigation showed that 

 the owl had gone through the broken pane of glass, 

 pushed aside, by a strength incredible, the heavy 

 picture that hung before it, and thus reached the 

 room where both chickens and birds were domiciled. 

 The rest appeared to have been quite easy. It is 

 probable that the owl reversed the order common to 

 the animal man, and consumed his desert first. Cer- 

 tainly chicklets less than twenty-four hours old should 

 be tender enough for the most fastidious owlet. But 

 evidently his appetite had not been appeased by the 

 chickens, and he felt that a portion at least of the 

 canary was necessary. 



