BIRDS OF PREY 167 



to three and a half weeks. Mr. Bendire says it is not 

 unusual for the last eggs to hatch two weeks after the 

 first. The young owls are covered with a whitish gray 

 or brown cottony down, and have the hooked bill and 

 talons of the adults. They stay in the nest until seven 

 weeks old. At four weeks old, a young Barn Owl will 

 tear a gopher as fiercely as an adult, swallowing it fur 

 and all. The noise of a family of these hungry young 

 birds in a tree can be compared to nothing, for it is like 

 nothing else. As soon as they discover, by some occult 

 sense, that the adult is on the way home with supper, the 

 hissing and shrieking begin, and are kept up all night 

 long. 



When the nestlings are seven or eight weeks old, the 

 first lesson in hunting is given early in the evening, and 

 the young owls flit about with the adults on noiseless 

 wings like roly-poly bats. 



They soon learn to imitate the ludicrous attitude of 

 the parent as, bolt upright, with half-closed eyelids, it 

 blinks at the daylight, looking as wise as a sage and as 

 comical as a monkey. 



Except in the breeding season these owls are gre- 

 garious, and an old belfry is often the home of from ten 

 to twenty inhabitants. Besides its screech, the Barn 

 Owl has a nasal snore. 



