294 EIVERBY 



One frequently sees the young of the phoebc sit- 

 ting in a row upon a limb, while the parents feed 

 them in regular order. Twice I have come upon a 

 brood of young but fully fledged screech owls in 

 a dense hemlock wood, sitting close together upon a 

 low branch. They stood there like a row of mum- 

 mies, the yellow curtains of their eyes drawn together 

 to a mere crack, till they saw themselves discovered. 

 Then they all changed their attitudes as if an elec- 

 tric current had passed through the branch upon 

 which they sat. Leaning this way and that, they 

 stared at me like frightened cats till the mother took 

 flight, when the young followed. 



The family of chickadees above referred to kept 

 in the trees about my place for two or three weeks. 

 They hunted the same feeding-ground over and over, 

 and always seemed to find an abundance. The par- 

 ent birds did the hunting, the young did the calling 

 and the eating. At any hour in the day you could 

 find the troop slowly making their way over some 

 part of their territory. 



Later in the season one of the parent birds seemed 

 smitten with some fatal malady. If birds have lep- 

 rosy, this must have been leprosy. The poor thing 

 dropped down through a maple-tree close by the 

 house, barely able to flit a few feet at a time. Its 

 plumage appeared greasy and filthy, and its strength 

 was about gone. I placed it in the branches of a 

 spruce-tree, and never saw it afterward. 



