The record at the summer's end is almost beyond 

 belief. 



Not counting what the two old owls ate, and 

 leaving out of the count the two frogs, it is within 

 limits to reckon not less than six small animals 

 brought to the hollow gum every night of the 

 three weeks that these young owls were depen- 

 dent for food— a riddance in this short time of 

 not less than one hundred and twenty-five musk- 

 rats, mice, and voles. What four boys in the 

 same time could clear the meadows of half that 

 number? And these animals are all harmful, 

 the muskrats exceedingly so, where the meadows 

 are made by dikes and embankments. 



Not a tree in South Jersey that spring bore a 

 more profitable crop. When fruit-growing in 

 Jersey is done for pleasure, the altruistic farmer 

 with a love for natural history will find large 

 reward in his orchards of gums, that now are 

 only swamps. 



Just as useful as the crop of owls, and beyond 

 all calculation in its sweetening effects upon our 

 village life, is the annual yield of swallows by 

 the piles in the river. Years ago a high spring 

 tide carried away the south wing of the old 

 [268] 



