20 TJie Food of the Owls. 
short time, he fell off the limb to the ground, and then tumbled 
about in the leaves in an apparently very crippled and helpless con- 
dition. My dog, that had been sitting all this time in a perfect 
frenzy of excitement at the foot of the stub, watching the owl, now 
forgot his training and made a headlong rush through the creek for 
the owl, but it was up and away, leaving him disappointed and crest- 
fallen. I returned to the ground and departed, leaving this inter- 
esting family to the enjoyment of their well-furnished larder. 
I subsequently learned that these young Bubos came to a tragic 
end. Some boys, finding them in the stub, threw them out into 
the creek, where they were worried to death by their dogs. 
March 28, '88. Found a Great-horned Owl's nest containing two 
young owls, parts of a rabbit, and a flying-squirrel. Nest in a cavity 
in a soft maple. 
March 29, '88. Bubo's nest in top of a white oak tree. An old 
nest of Red -tailed Hawk, two small young owls, a whole rabbit, 
and a half rabbit— a great deal more rabbit than owl. 
March 30, '88. Nest in a wild cherry tree. A crow's nest pre- 
empted and reconstructed. Contained one young owl, a rabbit, a 
flying squirrel, and a robin. This is the only nest in which was 
found the remains of any bird. 
Last spring, while out hunting Bubo's nests, I found a dead 
Screech Owl lying on the upper side of a broken plum tree limb. 
Its back, from the neck to the tail, was as neatly laid open as it could 
have been done with a sharp knife. I credited this piece of wanton- 
ness to the Great-horned Owl. 
One bright day in March, '87, 1 was returning from a professional 
call. At this season of the year, when the hawks and owls are nest- 
ing, it is my custom, when not hurried by business, to leave the 
highways aad ride haphazard through the woods, regardless of 
fences, hills, hollows, or creeks. 
On this day I was riding leisurely along through heavy timber, 
down *' Johnson's Creek," when my attention was arrested by the 
noisy cawing of a large flock of crows on the hillside two or three 
hundred yards to my right. 
I at once guessed the cause of all this tumult to be a Great- horned 
Owl, for of all the denizens of the forest none other will so arouse 
the uncontrollable indignation of the family Corvid^e. 
I had not thought of disturbing this camp-meeting of the 
crows, until suddenly a regular pandemonium of shrieks, and 
directly the scurrying by of a number of the sable birds, each one 
