308 WILD WINGS 



days one of them brought the owl to my home in a paper 

 bag. It was evening, and I had just returned from a drive. 

 I saw from the worn plumage of the bird that she was a 

 mother. The boy protested that there was nothing else in the 

 hole, but I knew better. Next day I had him show me the 

 place. 



As I climbed the stub, I detected the odor of decay. " Poor 

 little things," I thought; " starved!" However, I reached in, 

 and instantly something seized the end of one of my fingers, 

 and I drew out a puny, downy little owlet, hanging on for 

 dear life. Again I put in my hand, and had another " bite." 

 This I kept up till I had the whole brood of six. Down at the 

 very bottom were six or eight mice which the mother had 

 brought them, now badly decayed. The owlets were too 

 young to tear them, and evidently the father had left his 

 motherless children to their fate. 



Taking them home, I fed them, and put them in a box with 

 their mother. Meat which I left was evidently fed to them all 

 each night by the old bird. After a few nights she escaped, 

 and the young were again motherless. One puny little runt 

 died, but the rest flourished and made very interesting pets, 

 which I photographed from time to time in their various 

 stages. One of them had one eye smaller than the other, 

 a deformity which I also observed in one other Screech Owl. 

 Two escaped and another died, but two of them are yet alive 

 and well, after three years of captivity. 



About the only way, ordinarily, of solving the Screech Owl's 

 nesting secret is to peer into every likely tree-hollow, and now 

 and then one will be rewarded. One day, the thirteenth of 

 April, I glanced into a low hole in an apple-tree. Two bright 

 eyes glowed like coals at the bottom, and at length I could 

 make out the owl shrinking over on her side, and disclosing 

 three eggs, about the size of those of pigeons. 



