WAYS OF THE OWL. 179 



in October, 1891. I handled him freely, but 

 the closed eyes and rigid muscles did not move. 

 I went away and watched him from a distance, 

 and he was alert and making full use of his 

 beautiful eyes. 



Early in the summer of 1890, a friend sent 

 me three young screech owls. They were as odd 

 little gray hobgoblins as could be imagined. 

 Their temper, their voices, their appetites all 

 needed superlatives to describe them. They 

 were sent to the White Mountains for the sum- 

 mer, and lived in a slatted box under the barred 

 owls' big cage. They loved mice, birds, and 

 fish, but did not take quite as kindly to raw 

 liver as the barred owls did. For a week or 

 more two of them were taken away from the 

 third, and when they came back they no longer 

 knew him as a brother. His life was made a 

 burden to him, and one morning in August I 

 found his body lying 011 the floor of their cage. 

 They had removed nearly all his feathers and 

 would probably have devoured him if I had not 

 deprived them of the fruits of their unnatural 

 crime. A few days passed and the two mur- 

 derers quarreled over a mouse. In the frequent 

 struggles that followed, one was killed outright 

 and the other survived but twelve hours. My 

 efforts to tame these young screech owls were 

 only partially successful. The murdered one had 



