IS 
TIIK CONDOR 
Vol, XIII 
tree-tops. It will be noted that the owlets remained in the nest about two weeks 
longer in 1907 than in 1906. One yonngster was in the very top branches of the 
old elm of his nativity, fully fifty feet above the deserted home or more than 
seventy feet above the ground; another was a hundred yards away in the timber 
tract and some eighteen feet up in a linden; both were motionless and inconspicu- 
ous among the budding branches. In the time at disposal the third brother could 
not be found. Two days before this the young had shown neither inclination nor 
ability to fly. It seems certain that no one of them could have mounted a vertical 
distance of fifty feet through any powers 
of his own. The conclusion seems in- 
evitable that in some way the old birds 
carried the young to the places where I 
found them. But the secret belongs to 
the owls, for no one witne.ssed the leave- 
taking. 
A little more than two months passed 
b}' and on a walk through their now 
heavily-foliaged retreat two great heavy 
owls, seemingly, and doubtless actually, 
larger than adults, were startled from the 
ground near some prostrate tree trunks, 
from which they flew slowly into the near- 
b}" trees. Almo.st at the same moment a 
third dropped from the lower branches of 
an oak and took up a new position deeper 
in the shadows of the woods. So far as 
mere size was concerned the owlets had 
reached and even surpa.ssed the adult owl 
estate, though probably still under the 
care and tutelage of their elders. From 
now on they would need to shrink and 
harden into the strength and agility nec- 
essary to enter the competition of adult 
owl life and maintain themselves in the 
general struggle for existence. 
February of 1908 again found Mr. 
Smith and me rapping anxiously at the 
old elm of the timber j^asture. With the 
facilities at our disposal we could accom- 
plish little more with the young birds, 
but during the year we had formulated a 
plan by which there might be abarepos- 
owl as she sat within her doorway. Our 
hopes were raised by the reports of both Mr. Benedict and Mr. McFarland that, as 
the nesting season Approached, the owls had been heard hooting as usual. Our mis- 
givings began when we found piled about the nest-tree the cord-wood from a num- 
ber of the neighboriug youug lindens. The old nest cavity was found empty. The 
owls were able to endure intrusion into their home life for two seasons, but evi- 
dently did not take kindly to radical changes in their immediate environment. 
A mile west of the old home is another forest fragment of perhaps sixty acres 
I'ig. 1.1 THK own IIO.MK OK 190, S; .A. V.AIX 
LOOK .ACOKT 
sibility of securing a ])ortrait of the old 
