BIRDS THAT PREY AND SOME THAT DO NOT 469 



owl and that their actions were 



being watched by an interested ^ '" 



company in the house; there f 



were three lads in the gang and 



they had all dropped from the / ' 



fence into the yard before "Boo- & 



boo" the owl discovered them. I jf| 



never saw three boys go over a 



fence more rapidly than these 



lads did when "Booboo" with 



wings spread and eyes glaring 



swooped down upon them. Once 



when "Booboo" was free, he 



thought he would escape from the confines of the 



yard; so away he went over the house-tops to the 



river bank. I followed on a dead run, and reached 



the rolling mill which stood on the banks of the 



river in time to hear a war-whoop and see a big 



brawny mill-hand hopping around on one foot and 



nursing the other in his two hands. 



There was evidently something doing and I 

 rightly conjected that "Booboo" must be mixed up 

 in it. It seems that "Booboo" in flying towards 

 the river struck some telegraph wires which his 

 defective vision did not enable him to see; the force 

 with which he struck the wires caused him to fall 

 to the ground, seeing which the mill-hand rushed 

 out to capture the bird and imprudently put his 

 foot down upon him with the results already told. 



Another great horned owl that I owned I kept 

 in my studio on Broadway in New York City until 



