296 The Great Horned Owl 



The young birds grew very slowly, although the 

 remains of fish, mice, squirrels, rabbits, and birds 

 of various kinds furnished abundant evidence that 

 the old birds were lavish in supplymg them with food. 

 They remained in the nest for about eleven weeks — 

 a long time in comparison with most of our birds, 

 many young birds leaving the nest in from twelve 

 to fifteen days, and the woodcock, bob white, and 

 ruffed grouse in about as many hours. 



During all this time the boy saw very little of the 

 parent birds, which was a great disappointment; but 

 from the few glimpses which he succeeded in getting 

 he learned several interesting things. He had always 

 been told that owls could not see in the daytime. 

 One day he approached the nesting tree very cau- 

 tiously, but the old bird on the nest evidently saw him, 

 for it immediately flew into a small cluster of hem- 

 locks some little distance away. Again the boy 

 tried to approach the bird, but with little better success; 

 finally, however, he succeeded in getting close enough 

 to see the owl walk back and forth on a limb, ruffling 

 its feathers very much after the fashion of a strutting 

 turkey cock. This was probably from anger rather 

 than anything else. The bird soon flew, and this 

 time it went so far into the thick hemlocks as to be 

 lost to view. This and other similar circumstances 



