A FEW FEATHERED FIENDS. 



239 



and then, flying northward, disappeared among the 

 pines. I generally see them on dark, cloudy days 

 before a snow-storm, but remember one brilliantly 

 clear day after a storm in March, when a dozen 

 or more passed over, scattering along at no great 

 distance from each other, 

 some within fifty yards of 

 the ground and others up 

 perhaps an eighth of a mile. 

 In that bright sunlight, 

 against the dark-blue sky, 

 they were beautiful beyond 

 anything I remember see- 

 ing. . . . On one occasion 

 I was riding along a back 

 road, when a snowy owl 

 that seemed to have been 

 eating something in the 

 bushes, started up and, fly- 

 ing about our heads, actu- 

 ally threatened us with its 

 claws." 



Mr. Cram adds that the 

 taxidermists offer so high a 

 price for these birds that 

 gunners make a business 



of shooting them, and, as a consequence, they are 

 now scarce. There will be deep regret in the future 

 when the landscape is robbed of all its wilder phases 

 of bird-life and the imagination called upon to 

 supply the weird cries that are still heard, but only 



Horned Owl. 



