262 



Snooty 



twenty-knot breeze catches their broad wings 

 and tosses them about helplessly. This one, 

 however, was fat as a plover. When I 

 stuffed him, I found that he. had just eaten 

 a big rat and a meadow-lark, hair, bones, 

 feathers, and all. It would be interesting to 

 know what he intended to do with the duck. 

 Perhaps, like the crow, he has snug hiding 

 places here and there, where he keeps things 

 against a time of need. 



Every severe winter a few of these beau- 

 tiful owls find their way to the lonely places 

 of the New England coast, driven south- 

 ward by lack of food in the frozen North. 

 Here, in Massachusetts, they prefer the 

 southern shores of Cape Cod, and especially 

 the island of Nantucket, where, besides the 

 food cast up by the tides, there are larks 

 and blackbirds and robins which linger all 

 winter. At home, in the far North, the owls 

 feed largely upon hares and grouse ; here 

 nothing comes amiss, from a stray cat, roving 

 too far from the house, to stray mussels on 

 the beach that have escaped the sharp eyes 

 of crows and sea-gulls. 



