28 THE O. & O. SEMI-ANNUAL. 
two or three that remained to pay their respects to me. I did not 
care to molest either the owls or the crows, and getting down 
from the tree went on my way looking for further finds. 
A quarter of a mile from these nests I came to another, from 
which I had taken last year a set of five crow’s eggs. As soon 
as it came in sight, I could see that it was occupied, and on giving 
the tree a vigorous kick, a Long-eared Owl flew from the nest 
and perched upon a limb a few rods away. Quickly ascending, 
I found six young owls, also in the downy plumage, and on movy- 
ing them about I found also one addled egg. The queer actions 
of the old birds, for the male had appeared, now attracted my no- 
tice. They were on a limb close together and seemed to be con- 
sulting as to what was best to be done under the circumstances. 
Swaying their bodies from side to side and bowing to each other 
in a most grotesque manner, every few seconds they gave utter- 
ance to sounds that closely imitated the quarrelings of a couple of 
tom cats upon a back yard fence. 
Finally they seemed to have settled upon a plan to attract my 
attention and get me down from their nest. Jumping downward 
from limb to limb till they neared the ground, they tumbled into 
the leaves and rolled about in an apparently agonizing condition. 
To assist them in carrying out the deceit I rapidly descended, but 
when I reached terra firma they were nowhere to be seen. In 
this nest there was also one Meadow Mouse and the half of an 
other. A few hundred yards further on I secured from a cavity 
in a half-dead willow four crystal-white eggs of the Zebra Wood- 
pecker, and so my trip was not without an oological treasure. 
But this experience with this, the most cat-like of the owls set 
me to reflecting, and the queries that arose in my mind were about 
on these lines: Why do the crows pay but little attention to the 
owls so long as they remain still or sit quietly upon their own 
nest ; yet the moment one takes to wing are thrown into a perfect 
frenzy of excitement? And why is it if the owls are so destructive 
of bird life as many suppose, that they do not occasionally purloin 
young crows in the absence of the old birds, or, like the Indian, 
have they not yet come to crow? And also if field mice is the 
principal food of this owl, and it required on an average one 
mouse for each young owl every twenty-four hours, how many 
would be required to satisfy this brood of twelve for twenty-one 
days? 
And further, I could not help but think what a find these thir- 
teen would have been had I happened along here three weeks 
sooner ; but I solaced myself with the thought that these groves 
would be a famous place to collect in next March. 
