WAYS OF THE OWL. 181 



them even when they stole his portion of the 

 food. It is now six months since I turned them 

 in together, and during the whole of that time 

 the four birds have been on terms of quiet in- 

 difference. 



About the middle of September, 1891, a Bos- 

 ton dealer sent me a mature great-horned owl. 

 He reached my country place just in time to be 

 sent back to Cambridge with the snowy and 

 barred owls. Clii^ping one of his wings, I 

 placed him with the others in the 250 square 

 feet of cellar space fenced off for them. Puffy 

 prepared for war, Fluffy fled, Prince Edward re- 

 garded the stranger with indifference, and Snow- 

 don and the great-horned formed an alliance at 

 once. Three months have passed, and, so far 

 as I know, no conflict has occurred. The older 

 barred owls fear and dislike the great-horned. 

 Prince Edward treats him with brassy famil- 

 iarity, and Snowdon stays with him in the cor- 

 ner of the cellar farthest from the favorite perch 

 of the barred owls. 



Having introduced my characters, I will now 

 compare them in several particulars. They ar- 

 range themselves, when I think of them as owls 

 merely, into two groups — the brown owls and 

 the gray owls. The great-horned, long-eared, 

 screech, and Acadian owls seem to me much 

 alike in disposition and their way of meeting- 

 man. They seem like kindred. 



