These are young barn owls. Staunch 

 friends of farmers, they will 

 eat many rodents before old age. 



Kind Words for Bad Birds 



by O. A. Fitzgerald . . . paintings by Charles Culver 



THOMAS D. BURLEIGH, a bird expert with the U. S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, has spent much time and traveled many 

 miles just looking at birds. He started at the age of six, when 

 he was just big enough to raise his eyes over the rim of a robin's 

 nest, and has continued through the years, and through forty- 

 four states, six provinces of Canada, most of Labrador and 

 Mexico, and part of Europe. Mr. Burleigh has become a one-man 

 Book of Knowledge on everything in feathers, and also the 

 fastest man to raise his voice when a bird's reputation is slurred. 

 Anyone who makes an unkind remark about an owl, a hawk, 

 a magpie, a woodpecker, or even a buzzard, within earshot of 

 Mr. Burleigh will soon find himself eased gently into a corner 

 and firmly given a lecture on the good qualities of so-called bad 

 birds. Shooting them indiscriminately, says he, is one of the 

 great mistakes of this generation. 



Quartet of baby long-eared owls, 

 also great eaters of mice. On the 

 opposite page is a golden eagle. 



74 



