164 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS 



in the full sunshine ; no trouble for him to see 

 ■which way and where to go. 



Just at dusk in the winter nights, I often 

 hear his soft hur-r-r-r, very pleasing and bell-like. 

 What a furtive, woody sound it is in the winter 

 stillness, so unlike the harsh scream of the hawk ! 

 But all the ways of the owl are ways of softness 

 and duskiness. His wings are shod with silence, 

 his plumage is edged with down. 



Another owl neighbor of mine, with whom I 

 pass the time of day more frequently than with 

 the last, lives farther away. I pass his castle 

 every night on my way to the post-office, and in 

 winter, if the hour is late enough, am pretty 

 sure to see him standing in his doorway, survey- 

 ing the passers-by and the landscape through 

 narrow slits in his eyes. For four successive 

 winters now have I observed him. As the twilight 

 begins to deepen, he rises up out of his cavity 

 in the apple-tree, scarcely faster than the moon 

 rises from behind the hill, and sits in the open- 

 ing, completely framed by its outlines of gray 

 bark and dead wood, and by his protective col- 

 oring virtually invisible to every eye that does 

 not know he is there. Probably my own is 

 the only eye that has ever penetrated his secret, 

 and mine never would have done so had I not 

 chanced on one occasion to see him leave his re- 



