Barn Owls Nesting in New York City 227 
our cameras, he, at a signal from us, was to slowly ascend the wooden ladder 
which leads to the top of the pigeon-cote. 
We removed our shoes, strapped our cameras to our backs, and soon were 
perched in our lofty station, ready for action. The signal was given, our man 
disappeared through one of the doors which’ opens into the barn from the 
cow-yard, and presently we could hear him making his way up the ladder. 
It was a moment of great expectation and intense inward excitement. The 
hoods of our cameras were pressed hard against our faces, and the focus was 
Fd a Se 
“IT WAS THROUGH THIS OPENING ... 
2 
"THAT THE BIRD USUALLY CAME” 
kept sharp on the uppermost hole of the loft, for it was through this opening 
I had learned that the bird usually came. Suddenly there was a shuffling 
sound at the top of the cote, a white form pulled its way through the pigeon- 
hole, and a magnificent creature sprang out into space and winged silently 
away to seek the shelter of some trees on the opposite side of the road. But, 
with the first wing-stroke of the bird, there had sounded the “reports” of two 
focal-plane shutters, and, as we relaxed and shifted plates, our words of con- 
gratulation were mutual. 
At just this moment, however, there began a commotion in the pigeon- 
loft that immediately changed our smiles to scowls of apprehension. First 
_ there was a scuffling and scratching, intermingled with some inaudible mutter- 
ings from the farm-hand, and then there began a series of pitiful, wailing 
cries which one could easily have believed were issuing from a human throat, 
but: which we knew to be coming from that of a terrified Barn Owl. 
