164 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



likely in the distance he 

 mistook the hat for a white 

 |)ullet or a rabbit. To a su- 

 perstitious person n o t 

 knowing the source of such 

 sounds the incident might 

 have been disquieting. 



The Homed Owl slays 

 rabbits, rats and mice by 

 wholesale. Dr. A. K. Fish- 

 er in his bulletin on the 

 Hawks and Owls of the 

 United States, quotes Mr. 

 O. E. Niles, who found the 

 remains of 113 dead rats at 

 one time on the ground be- 

 low a Great Horned Owl's 

 nest. This bird is the chief 

 enemy of the common crow 

 and we should not have so 

 many crows if owls were 

 not shot indiscriminately. 



Photograph by C. W. Leister. 



SOME WOODL.\ND MOUSERS 

 The younger members of a screech-owl family. Note the He- 



braic aspect of their countenances, 

 begins. 



When the sun sets their day 



As the hunter, woodchop- 

 l)er and settler subdue the 

 wilderness, the hoot of the 

 Horned Owl is heard less 

 and less in the woods, un- 

 til at last all the owls of this 

 species breeding in settled 

 regions are wijjcd out. This 

 is what has hajjpened now 

 in a large part of the east- 

 ern United States. Now 

 and then in some winters, 

 when food is scarce in the 

 north, Northern Owls may 

 drift here in migration: 

 otherwise the Homed Owl 

 is a disappearing bird. In 

 the forests he may survive, 

 but otherwise the land that 

 knew him of old shall know 

 him no more. 



BOY SCOUTS ADOPT A TREE 



THE TREE THE BOYS ADOPTED 

 This unusual tree is a native prone juniper near the Masonic Homes at Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. It is at least 80 

 years old, and now measures 48 feet in diameter, and is 24 inches high. The limbs lying on the ground do not take root. 

 It ha.s been successfully propagated at the Masonic Homes by cuttings, and a large number of young trees are now being 

 developed there. The Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown have adopted this remarkable tree, and have protected it from vandals by 

 crcctinn a .substantial fence around it. It is prefectly hardy and free from blight. The foliage is of a deeper blue-green than 

 tint ordinary trees of the same family. The picture was sent AMERICAN FORESTRY by the Hon. George B. Orlady, pre- 

 iding judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. 



