r54 AMERICAN OUNITHOLOGY. 



We have got a parrot and a canary, and one day we put the canary in 

 the parrot's cage to see what the parrot would do. The parrot looked 

 at the canary for a minute and said "Hello, parrot,'' and walked off. I 

 have got quite a lot of stuffed birds, and one day the parrot thought he 

 would find out what they were made of, and almost spoiled a cedar 

 waxwing and a sora rail, but I repaired them. One morning early last 

 summer we went out looking for squirrels nests, and came to an old 

 orchard, and my brother climbed an old apple tree and looked into a 

 hole. He hollered to the rest that he had found a red squirrel's nest. 

 He reached into the hole to take out the squirrel and pulled out a 

 screech owl. There were two owls in the nest, and when we took out 

 the owls we noticed some cotton in the nest, and -my brother said it was 

 funny that cotton should be in there, so he took some of it out, and the 

 cotton was, five young owls. We took the owls home and thought we 

 could tame the young ones, but we had such a large cage for them that 

 it was almost as if they were free. I read a story of one young owl 

 called Clawem, and I guessed that the name would fit our owls, as they 

 can clawem. Carl E. Gegenheimer, 



Taunton, Mass. 



A year or two ago when the river was mostly covered with ice, a red 

 headed duck flew down to a little open place in the river, and began to 

 swim about. A number of boys immediately collected and running out 

 on the ice until they were about twenty feet from the duck, began to 

 throw stones at him. He went on diving and swimming as if nobody 

 was near. Once in a while one of the stones would hit him, but he 

 took no notice of them. I suppose he wanted to stay in the open 

 water, at least, I never saw a duck sit in the water and let boys throw 

 rocks at him. For I have tried to creep up on ducks and have had 

 them go flying away when I was a sixteenth of a mile away. At last 

 a big rock landed near him and he flew off. In crossing over the road 

 he struck a telephone wire with his wing and almost fell to the ground. 

 He alighted in some open water further up the river. One of the boys 

 went home and got his air rifle. He hit the duck two or three times 

 before it flew back to where it came from. The boy's father came 

 down to the river with his gun and fired twice at the duck. He knocked 

 out a few feathers, but the bullets were not large enough. We went up 

 the river the next day, and there was the duck swimming contentedly 

 around. If the next day hadn't been Sunday, probably the man would 

 have shot the duck. On Monday the duck was gone, and I suppose is 

 now swimming in some pool if somebody hasn't shot him. 



Stafford Francis, Exeter, N. H. 



