174 JVays of Wood Folk. 



in great hungry mouthfuls. Then he hopped to the 

 top of the knoll, sat up straight, puffed out his feath- 

 ers to look big, and went to sleep. But with the first 

 slight movement I made to creep nearer, he was wide 

 awake and flew to a higher point. Such hearing is 

 simply marvelous. 



The stomach of an owl is peculiar, there being no 

 intermediate crop, as in other birds. Every part of 

 his jDrey small enough (and the mouth and throat of 

 an owl are large out of all proportion) is greedily swal- 

 lowed. Long after the flesh is digested, feathers, fur, 

 and bones remain in the stomach, softened by acids, 

 till everything is absorbed that can afford nourish- 

 ment, even to the quill shafts, and the ends and marrow 

 of bones. The dry remains are then rolled into large 

 pellets by the stomach, and disgorged. 



This, by the way, suggests the best method of find- 

 ing an owl's haunts. It is to search, not overhead, 

 but on the ground under large trees, till a pile of these 

 little balls, of dry feathers and hair and bones, reveals 

 the nest or roosting place above. 



It seems rather remarkable that my fisherman-owl 

 did not make a try at the coots that were so plenty 

 about him. Rarely, I think, does he attempt to strike 

 a bird of any kind in the daytime. His long training 

 at the north, where the days are several months long, 

 has adapted his eyes to seeing perfectly, both in sun- 



