GREAT HORNED OWL. 
BUBO VIRGINIANUS. 
“ HO ever heard an owl sing? is asked in de- 
rision,” says a delightful writer on natural 
subjects ; and he himself seems almost willing to acknow- 
ledge that the owl does not sing, and even to doubt his 
hoot. However it may be elsewhere, up here among the 
Green Mountains owls hoot, and hoot well, with deep, | 
strong voices that may be heard distinctly, of a calm 
evening, for a mile or more. 
One winter, after six weeks of cold, perhaps the 
severest in fifteen years, the weather moderated, and 
the 3d of March was comparatively a mild day. An owl 
felt the change, and in his gladness sent down ponderous 
vesper notes from the mountain, which, as they came 
booming across the valley, bore joy to all that heard 
them. 
The owl did not change the weather; the weather 
changed the owl. After all that has been said for and 
against the ability of inferior creatures to foretell changes 
of weather, the sum of our knowledge amounts to about 
this: the senses of these beings are keener than our own, 
enabling them to feel the changes sooner than we can, 
and consequently to get a little before us with their 
