108 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



notice by the assumption of a protective shape. 

 That it is not due to any dread of light or in- 

 ability to see is shown by the following instances 

 of perfect seeing by owls in bright daylight. 

 Walking through a Cambridge road in March, 

 1891, 1 saw an Acadian owl perched on a willow 

 limb about fifty feet from me. His i^lmnage was 

 stiffened and his eyes nearly shut. I approached 

 him and slowly raised my hand toward him. 

 Suddenly his eyes doened wide and glared at me. 

 Then the soft wings spread and he fell forward 

 upon them, and flew toward the sun to a distant 

 perch. The Acadian owl already mentioned 

 as having been seen in December, 1891, in the 

 spruce forest of the Swift River valley, watched 

 me keenly, and swung his small head around 

 after the manner of owls, trying to see me 

 clearly from more than one point of view. 



The screech owl which I first owned, although 

 shamming sleep one morning when I entered the 

 room where I kept it, pounced upon a dead mouse 

 which I let fall upon the floor, and flew off with 

 it before I realized what had happened. One 

 of my three young screech owls when only two 

 months old tried to catch a sap-sucking wood- 

 pecker which had perched near it in the sunlight 

 on a dead tree. My snowy owl, as I have al- 

 ready stated, watches birds flying across the sky 

 at a distance, and once saw me as I slowly 



