348 THU NATURAI^IST OF THK ST. CROIX 



I thought perhaps some of your readers might like to know 

 of a new way to study owls. Some friends went out shooting a 

 day or two ago. One shot at and wounded the wing of a big 

 Virginia horned owl. He was advised to kill the bird but would 

 not do so. He was going to study the bird alive, so he put the 

 big bird down behind him in the blind. Soon a duck came flying 

 along and he stooped so low in shooting he sat on the owl. The 

 owl not liking this way of being studied fastened its claws into 

 his back and refused all attempts to make it let go, and the more 

 they tried to get him off the harder he pinched, and from the 

 howling of the man it would appear as if the owl was studying 

 the man instead of the man studying the owl. The bird had to be 

 killed before he would let go, and although the man's back may 

 not be as smooth as usual, and it may be some time before he can 

 sit down, he knows more about owls than he did. Forest and 

 Stream, Dec. 4, 1890. 



In writing you the other day the woodcock paper I intended 

 to speak of the power curlews have of iuflexing the upper bill 

 same as the woodcock, so as to run along the groove of the lower 

 mandible and to clean out whatever may be adhering there. Prof. 

 Baird told me this and a Jamaica man, a Mr. Ilill, said the ibis 

 also does the same. Forest and Stream, Jan. 8, 1891, 



In answer to your or Mr. Chapman's note about wolves in 

 Florida, I would say that I purchased winter before last the skin 

 of a very large black wolf, as black as any bear, killed near Fort 

 Mears, south Florida. I sent it to the National Museum, Washing- 

 ton and last winter a skin dealer in Jacksonville had another one, 

 very dark (but not black), killed down in Lee county, south 

 Florida. Forest and Stream, Dec. 3, 1891. 



Your cuts of the wild animals have all been very fine; the last 

 Lynx canadensis, very life-like. This wildcat a few years ago 

 was very common in our woods and Lynx rufus did hardly ever 

 occur. Now it is much more abundant than canadensis. About 

 five years ago a taxidermist, Mr. Tappan, secured a black Lynx 

 rufus, a very pretty, glossy black animal. I wanted to procure it 

 for the National Museum, Washington, but as a black Lynx was 

 something very rare, he did not care to part with it. It was taken 



