464 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



HERE LYS JIM THE HEROE, 

 EWUS MY BEST FRIEN' AN' 

 HE LICKED A EAGLE. 



On the same block with my present studio, stands 

 the Congregational Church. It is a plain, dignified 

 building, with a tall, shingled steeple. It has been 

 repainted and renovated. This is too bad, because 

 there were formerly broken lights in the window- 

 sashes of the small windows away up in the steeple, 

 and the spire used to be inhabited by several 

 families of pigeons and one family of barn-owls, 

 all of which found their way into the steeple 

 through the broken windows. When Langdon 

 Gibson and his brother, Charles Dana, were boys 

 they discovered the barn-owls in the steeple. For 

 several years before that I was acquainted with the 

 fact that the steeple was inhabited by these birds, 

 but I had said nothing to any one about it, for the 

 reason that if no one knew where the owls' nest 

 was located, no one would disturb it, and up to 

 that time there was not a record of the barn-owl 

 breeding on Long Island. But one day Langdon 

 Gibson came to my house in great glee with the 

 most comical looking animal under his arm, which 

 looked much more like a monkey than it did like 

 a bird, but I recognized it at once as one of the 

 young barn-owls. A young barn-owl is the 

 most comical, weird bird that I have ever ex- 

 amined. I made two pages of drawings showing 

 the different poses assumed by this young bird; 



