108 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



At first the names were not of much use, for no 

 one could tell one bird from the other, but it 

 was not long before an event occurred which not 

 only caused them to be readily distinguished, 

 but led to a lifelong differentiation of their char- 

 acters and careers. Puffy, or he who was thence- 

 forth to be Puffy, caught his left wing between 

 two of the laths, and by his struggles injured it so 

 that it lost most of its usefulness as a wing and 

 became rather an obstruction to his free locomo- 

 tion. This happened about the middle of June, 

 after my return to Cambridge, and I did not see 

 the owls again until the second week in July, when 

 my long vacation at Chocorua began. I found 

 the birds fifty per cent larger than when I first 

 handled them, and with tempers similarly devel- 

 oped. No one's fingers were safe inside the bars 

 when the young gluttons were hungry. When 

 satiated they were stolid, and did little beyond 

 moving their heads and snapping their beaks. 

 One interesting fact had been developed during 

 my absence, the owls not only drank water 

 freely, but took prolonged baths whenever fresh 

 water was given them. Their tank was a foot 

 and a half long, a foot wide, and ten inches deep. 

 Their reflections in this comparatively deep and 

 dark pool greatly amused them for a time. On 

 the arrival of fresh water Fluffy was usually the 

 first at the brink, ready to drink several times, 



