84 
THE CONDOR 
| Vol. VIII 
whether he is a bird, man or beast. However, I have often watched the barn owl 
and studied his habits till I was satisfied he paid our neighbor more in one night 
than the pigeons, swallows and wrens did in a month. Not in singing; mercy no! 
Who ever heard of a song coming from a hooked bill? It was in real service about 
the farm, the service of a watchman or policeman, to rid the place of injurious 
rodents. 
It was not an easy matter to picture these barn owls, situated as they were in 
the very peak of the old barn. The minute we approached the nest box, the old owl 
pitched headlong out of the hole and landed in a willow tree opposite. We had 
to climb a ladder and swing into the rafters to reach the nest. In such a place, we 
could hardly handle a camera. There was not even a loft to work from, so we se- 
cured a long ladder and nailed a couple of cross-pieces strong enough to hold a 
board. Crawling up in a stooped position, we took the back out of the nest box 
and arranged so it would dropdown and show the interior or could be fastened up, 
at will. 
BARN OWLS ABOUT 24 DAYS OLD 
A month later, we climbed up in the gable end of the barn and pulled out three 
of the funniest, fuzziest monkey-faced little brats that it has ever been my privil- 
ege to set eyes upon. They blinked, snapped their bills and hissed like a box- 
ful of snakes. We took them to the ground and doubled up in laughter at their 
queer antics. They bobbed and screwed around in more funny attitudes in a min- 
ute than any contortionist I ever saw. 
We found them graded in size and height as carefully as a carpenter builds 
the steps of a stair case. They were such lumpy looking birds It looked as if 
some amateur taxidermist had taken them in hand and rammed the cotton in, wad 
at a time with a stick, till he had the youngsters bulging out in knobs all over. 
The eldest we called the colonel, but looking at him from a humanized stand- 
point, it seems to me he had been put together wrong, for his chest had slipped 
clear around on his back. At times he was a peaceable-looking citizen, but he 
was always wary and suspicious. He turned his back on the camera in disgust, 
