THE MENACE FROM ABOVE 97 



whistle of his, that quavering note as if he always 

 had his vox humana stop pulled all the way out — ■ 

 whoQ-oo-oo-oo-00 — 00 — 00 — 00 — has been heard by all 

 of us, winter and summer, in the still night, often 

 from the orchard beside the house. Many a night, 

 as a boy, I have lain in bed and listened to the owl 

 calling from his hole in an old apple-tree, while the 

 November wind rustled the dead leaves on the oak 

 beside my window and a delicious melancholy stole 

 over me. Many a time, too, I have seen, in the 

 daytime, the face of the little fellow peering from a 

 hole, and watched it fade mysteriously from sight 

 as I drew near, much like the Cheshire cat when 

 conversing with Alice. However, if you poked your 

 hand down into the hole, it was no spirit nip you 

 got on the finger! The screech-owl, something like 

 the black bear, has a red phase. (The so-called 

 cinnamon bear is not a separate species.) Certain 

 observers have sought to explain this by differences 

 in diet. Doctor Eaton discovered that the red- 

 owls he examined had been eating crayfish. As the 

 screech-owls in the Mississippi Valley, where cray- 

 fish are abundant, are more often red than gray, 

 there would seem to be some basis for the theory. 

 The little fellows nest in early spring, laying their 

 eggs in New England before May 1st, and they 

 often use an old flicker-hole. Undoubtedly, the owls 

 could be persuaded into artificial boxes, and this 

 should be done. Not only are they beneficial birds, 

 hunting mice eagerly, but their faces at the nest 

 hole by day are odd and pretty sights, and when 

 they are caught outside the nest and puff them- 

 selves out or draw themselves up straight and thin, 



