ALEXANDER] PETER 135 



recognition came over his features that was very marked, and 

 seemed to say: "Ah! that's where I take my diurnal repose." 



He responded to gentle scratching on his head with a most 

 blissful expression. This performance never failed to win his con- 

 fidence, in fact he solicited this attention it would seem, if we could 

 so interpret the look he always bestowed upon a person who had 

 thus functioned in his behalf. Two other expressions should be 

 mentioned. One that we called "bluff" and another that most 

 expressively suggested hate. The first of these was sometimes 

 shown when he was suddenly disturbed while sleeping. He would 

 puff himself up to twice natural size and spread his uninjured wing 

 its full length before him, swaying and hissing the while in a most 

 ferocious manner; he then looked to be a most formidable bird 

 instead of the tiny owl that he was, so small in fact that he could 

 pass thru the meshes of ordinary chicken wire with ease. 



Hate he once displayed when a neighbor's cat sprang upon a 

 window ledge and looked into the room where he was sitting. He 

 at once became stiff and rigid, his feathers flattened tight against 

 his small body and his ear-tufts were wholly depressed; a savage 

 glow came into his eyes, the irises opened their widest and he stared 

 fixedly for a few moments in silent fury, then considering himself 

 vanquished by the cat's glowering eyes, he suddenly betook his 

 rage to a neighboring bedroom and hid himself under a bureau. 



Besides a great deal of beak clapping, Peter was able to express 

 himself vocally in several different ways. Hissing with the softest 

 sibilance imaginable was his most common method of protesting 

 when disturbed, or if he was suddenly seized he sometimes gave 

 voice to a long emphatic whoo-oo: but the sound we liked best to 

 hear was his shivery little song that he uttered a few times, usually 

 just after sunset or in the wee small hours of the morning. 



Owls have four toes, and when they perch, two are placed before, 

 and two behind. The strength and grasping power of these toes 

 is truly amazing, and Peter lacked none of the phalangeal vigor 

 that was his by inheritance, for he several times demonstrated the 

 utility of his claw-armed toes on my disturbing hand. 



We have had many animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, 

 feathered and furred, wild and domestic for pets, but taken all in 

 all, for general and particular interest, for droll and unusual 

 behavior, and for actual usefulness (he was a better mouser than 

 most cats) Peter stood head and shoulders above them all. 



