AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 335 



16-14-16 7-11-2 any harm, 3-6-1. 1-12-5-7-9-8-6, please don't ask for 

 3-7 brother's wings and breast for 7-11-2-15 picture hat. I 12-14-9-10 

 sing my very best and cheer 7-11-2-15 garden with my song, and I will 

 call all the members of my family together and 12-5 destroy all the bad 

 insects that kill your fruits and flowers if 7-11-2 12-11-2-9-16 only de- 

 cide to wear ribbons and flowers instead of 13-14-15-16-1. 12-14-9-10 

 7-11-2? Jean Lampton, Florence, Italy. 



WHAT IS MY NAME? 



My name is . I cannot tell you the color of my gown, for some- 

 times it is of an ashen grey, and sometimes a bright rufous color. 

 Both my gray and red coats are striped with black, and with each I 

 wear a vest of white or very light grey with black streaks and cross- 

 markings. If you think that by the color you can tell my age or sex, 

 or that I change my dress to suit the weather, you will be fooled. 



I am smaller than my relatives, excepting one cousin, and you will 

 not mistake me for him for I wear eartufts which look like" horns. I 

 lay my eggs in the hollow of a tree which I carpet with a few feathers, 

 chips, rotten wood or leaves. Perhaps I do eat a song-bird now and 

 then, when I am very hungry, but I prefer a diet of mice with cut worm 

 sauce, and you surely will forgive me if I once in a while: feast upon 

 an English Sparrow. I like to fill the silence of the night with my 

 music, which is in a minor key. Some people, whose musical taste is 

 uncultivated, call it a moaning, quavering wail. 



GLEANINGS, 



At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come 

 suddenly upon a brood of Screech Owls, full grown, sitting together 

 upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. 



They sit perfectly upright, some with their backs and some with 

 their breasts toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direc- 

 tion. Their eyes are closed to a mere black line. Through this crack 

 they are watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. 

 After observing them a moment, I take a single step toward them, 

 when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude is 

 "hanged, they bend, some this way, some that, and instinct with life 

 and motion, stare wildly around them. 



John Burroughs. 



