246 
y^y Li ale Owls. 
increasing energy, but sometimes when she was doing this a sense 
of her temerity would suddenly strike her and she would look 
up quickly into my face with a comical expression of alarm 
which said plainer than words " good gracious, I hope I 
haven't made him angry." She used to be so funny that I 
could hardly help laughing at her— a fatal mistake, as the 
most suppressed titter would send her back into her cage 
in a state of great alarm. Her fear and disapproval 
were equally marked if I happened to cough or frown 
(she liked being talked to in an ordinary voice and answered 
my remarks by her own, readily), but what disgusted her most 
was any attempt on my part to miitate the call of one of her 
own kind. I flatter myself that this was not owmg to the 
badness of the imitation, as I have often succeeded in de- 
ceiving wild birds and making them come quite near me; 
rather I think it was that she considered that there was 
something uncanny about the fact of an Owl's voice pro- 
ceeding from a man — or she may have believed that she was 
listening to the ghostly lament of some of her kindred that 
I had slain and devoured I I only heard Kirrie call loudly 
once during the whole time, I had her and the cries of her rela- 
tions in the garden usually left her quite unmoved. She 
never seemed to want a mate so I did not take any trouble 
to provide one. Kirrie's food consisted mainly of small birds 
as these were easiest obtained, but I think she really pre- 
ferred mice and would catch live ones with great dexterity 
considering her crippled condition. On one occasion a Blue 
Tit entered my room and actually flew into her cage in a 
moment of panic. To my surprise she (made no attempt to 
seize it, although, when, a minute later, the foolish little 
bird killed itself against the window as I was trying to re- 
lease it, she accepted the corpse gratefully and devoured it 
at once. Kirrie lived longer than any of my other Owls and 
remained in good health until last summer when I noticed 
that she was ailing from no apparent cause. She grew rap- 
idly worse and becaine subject to peculiar and I fear painful 
spasms, which in conjunction with the fact that for several 
days she had cast up none of the bones and feathers of her 
