Kookooskoos and the Wrong Rat. 73 



screeching like mad, the owl silent as death. Then 

 the great claws did their work. When I straightened 

 up from my thicket, Kookooskoos was standing on 

 his game, tearing off the flesh with his feet, and carry- 

 ing it up to his mouth with the same movement, 

 swallowing everything alike, as if famished. 



Over them the squirrel, which had whisked up a tree 

 at the first alarm, was peeking with evil eyes over the 

 edge of a limb, snickering at the blood-stained snow and 

 the dead cat, scolding, barking, threatening the owl for 

 having disturbed the search for his stolen walnuts. 



I caught that same owl soon after in a peculiar 

 way. A farmer near by told me that an owl was 

 taking his chickens regularly. Undoubtedly the bird 

 had been driven southward by the severe winter, and 

 had not taken up regular hunting grounds until he 

 caught the cat. Then came the chickens. I set up 

 a pole, on the top of which was nailed a bit of board 

 for a platform. On the platform was fastened a small 

 steel trap, and under it hung a dead chicken. The 

 next morning there was Kookooskoos on the plat- 

 form, one foot in the trap, at which he was pulling 

 awkwardly. Owls, from their peculiar ways of hunt- 

 ing, are prone to light on stubs and exposed branches ; 

 and so Kookooskoos had used my pole as a watch 

 tower before carrying off his game. 



