260 AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 



good part of every day in screaming, and were 

 bound to be attended to by all but the stone- 

 deaf. A native of the region pointed out a 

 ledge, on which, according to his account, they 

 had made their nest for more than thirty years. 

 " We call them mountain hawks," he said, in 

 answer to an inquiry. The keepers of the hotel, 

 naturally enough, called them eagles ; while a 

 young Canadian, who one day overtook me as 

 I neared the summit, and spent an hour there 

 in my company, pronounced them fish-hawks. 

 I asked him, carelessly, how he could be sure 

 of that, and he replied, after a little hesitation, 

 " Why, they are all the time over the lake ; and 

 besides, they sometimes dive into the water and 

 come up with a fish." The last item would have 

 been good evidence, no doubt. My difficulty 

 was that I had never seen them near the lake, 

 and what was more conclusive, their heads were 

 dark-colored, if not really black. A few min- 

 utes after this conversation I happened to have 

 my glass upon one of them as he approached 

 the mountain at some distance below us, when 

 my comrade asked, " Looking at that bird ? " 

 " Yes," I answered ; on which he continued, in 

 a matter-of-fact tone, "That 's a crow; " plainly 

 thinking that, as I appeared to be slightly in- 

 quisitive about such matters, it would be a kind- 

 ness to tell me a thing or two. I made bold to 



