480 THE BRITISH NATURE BOOK 



Wisdom had evidently come down the chimney, for he was uncommonly sooty 

 and rather cross. 



We called him Young Wisdom, because first, he was only just able to fly, and 

 second, he was so small that even when full grown he looked a babe compared 

 with the old barn-owl which was also residing with me at the time. The name, 

 however, was not so far-fetched, for I believe this was the owl that was the sacred 

 bird of the ancient Greeks, and was engraved on their coins as the emblem of Pallas 

 Athene. Not that he showed any preternatural wisdom or even the semblance 

 of it which the larger owls attain to in the gravity of their demeanour. But 

 he made a very amusing pet, and grew quite tame. It is not every owl which 

 you could carry through the street on your finger to the nearest photographer 

 to be photographed in his studio. There I got the photographer to rig up 

 a perch for him, but he refused to sit on it, and insisted on flying to my shoulder 

 or hand. He lived in a fair-sized aviary out-of-doors, and it was noteworthy 

 that he was much more awake by day than his neighbour. The little owl hunts 

 regularly in the daylight, and is much less nocturnal than his bigger cousins. 

 He learnt to associate my approach with the gift of beetles chiefly the result 

 of those mealworms to which a previous article alludes and when I arrived he 

 would begin " bobbing " in the most absurd way until he had been satisfied. He 

 did not object to the most unsavoury of beetles of other species, and if it was 

 a very large one would hold it in his claw and enjoy it in pieces. In addition, 

 he lived on mice, and when the supply failed, on small pieces of raw meat. 



He had a large basin of water within reach, and though I never saw him I am 

 sure he used to bathe ; and on one occasion I put some minnows into it, in the 

 hope that he would repeat the antics of another owl I once had, which would go 

 in head first after fish. However, Young Wisdom would not enter the water in 

 my presence ; but in my absence the minnows disappeared. 



Circumstances made it necessary after a year for me to decrease my outdoor 

 pets, and I turned the little owl out. Judge of my surprise when I found him 

 perched on the top of the aviary two days afterwards waiting to be let in I 

 Naturally he got his way, and I kept him another month or so. Then I was forced 

 to bid him farewell again, and this time I took him five miles away to a big 

 wood and let him go there. He flew to the low branch of the nearest tree, " bobbed " 

 at me, uttered his usual cry " Cu-cu-cu," and went off into the deeper part of the 

 wood. This time he did not return. 



