OTHER NEIGHBORS IN THE TREES. 237 



holiday ; a shop-woman and her daughter stood before the 

 cage of nocturnal Raptores at the ' ' Zoo. " Said the elder : 

 "See these heagles !" to which the younger replied : ''Them 

 isn't heagles, they're 'awks." " If you please," interposed 

 a servant standing near, "them isn't heagles nor 'awks, 

 they're howls. My maister's son once kept one." 



3. The owls are found nearly the whole world over. The 

 books mention about two hundred species, as species are yet 

 understood, and queer specimens are they, every one. As 

 a rule, how trim, spruce, compact, and graceful are the fal- 

 cons, the typical birds of prey ! How fluffy, squatty, and 

 dowdyish is the typical owl ! Whether it means little or 

 much, it is thus with the diurnal and the nocturnal Lepi- 

 doptera. As the elder naturalist said : " If any analogy is 

 allowable between different tribes of animals, the owls 

 might be said to resemble moths " (the night-fliers), " and 

 to differ from the diurnal birds of prey as these do from the 

 butterflies " (the day-fliers). These birds have been called 

 "feathered cats," for the owl, cat-like, prowls at night, 

 and steals upon its victim by a quick, fluffy, still swoop or 

 spring. With the silent movements of a spirit, and a voice 

 so supernatural, and with certain associations of time and 

 place, the effect is appalling. 



4. The owls are intensely carnivorous. The diminutive 

 ones will feed largely upon insects, and some of the large 

 kinds will eat them occasionally. But nature has made 

 them for prowlers, and as such we find them fond of flesh, 

 fowl, and fish. So immense is their destruction of the 

 smaller rodents that they are worth millions to the agri- 

 culture of our country. They are the feathered Nimrods 

 of the night. Even the American hare, the rabbit wrongly 

 called, falls an easy victim. 



5. Some of the owls can fish, too. But whether hunt- 

 ing, fowling, or fishing, they lack the style of doing it 

 which belongs to the falcon tribe ; and when out bugging 



