59

1916.

(Screech Owl) flesh-colored object which looked very like an unfledged
young Robin and not improbably was one. For upon following back her
line of flight I thought she must have come directly from an isolated
apple tree and this was found to shelter a Robin's nest with the lining
freshly torn out. Between this tree and the oak lies a perfectly open
space fifty yards or more in width which the Owl was seen to cross.
Yet it was then 9.30 A.M., with the sun shining brightly from a
cloudless sky. That at such an hour and place she should have
sought and captured prey of any kind seems rather surprising. On reaching
the hollow oak she scarce checked her swift-gliding flight perceptibly before
entering a round hole originally drilled by a Flicker and not since
enlarged, being rimmed about by sound wood. It afforded so poor a
view of the dimly lighted chamber within that the young Owls, unquestionably
there at the time, could not be sighted. Nor did we afterwards set eyes 
on more than one and he, poor bird, was found lying dead beneath
a neighboring shed, albeit without sign of an external injury and having
flight quills fully developed although his red body feathering was still
plentifully intermixed with whitish natal down. This happened about
June 15 [June 15, 1916]. As the dead bird was in fresh condition he and the
others presumably left the nest about that date. Save on the single
occasion above mentioned the mother bird remained unseen and probably
within the oak, by day, but often appeared when twilight was deeping [deepening] at
evening, gliding on noiseless wing through the apple orchard with excited
Robins clamouring in her wake. Strange to say no vocal sound of
any kind, however trifling, was even once heard from any of these Owls
during April, May or June, despite the fact that the parent birds
certainly hatched and reared their brood within sixty yards of the
house in which I was not only living all the while, but also strolling
about constantly long after nightfall. That they should one and all
have preserved such apparently unbroken silence during so long