July, 1906 | 
THE BARN OWL AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE 
8,S 
or sat in a soured state of silence, but one eye was always open and watching 
every movement we made. 
We crept out one night and hid in a brush heap by the barn. It was notlong 
before the scratching and soft hissing of the young owls told us their breakfast 
time had come. The curtain of the night had fallen. The day creatures were at 
rest. Suddenly a shadow flared across the dim-lit sky; there was a soundless 
sweeping of wings as the shadow winnowed back again. The young owls, by 
some unmistakable perception, knew of the approach of food, for there was a sud- 
den outburst in the soap-box like the whistle of escaping steam. It was answered 
by an unearthly, rasping, witching screech. I thought of the time when we used to 
creep out in the dead of night 
and scare an old negro by 
dragging a chunk of resin 
along a cord attached to the 
top of an empty tin can. 
Again and again the shadow 
came and went. Then I crept 
into the barn, felt my way up 
and edged along the rafters to 
the hen-roosty old box. Sil- 
ently I waited and listened to 
a nasal concert that was as 
pleasing as a cageful of musi- 
cal snakes. The minute food 
was brought I flashed a 
match and saw one of the lit- 
tle “monkey-faces” tearing 
the head from the body of a 
young gopher. 
The barn owl kills the 
largest gopher with ease and 
celerity, and with apparently 
little resistance on the part of 
the animal. With the sharp 
talons firmly fastened in the 
gopher’s back and the wings 
spread, the owl will break the 
vertebrae of the animal’s 
neck with a few hard blows 
of its beak. The head is most 
always devoured first, either 
because that is a favorite 
part or because the destruction of the head gives better assurance of the 
animal’s death. 
The next time we climbed the cob-webbed rafters to photograph the young 
owls, I cautiously thrust in my hand to pull out the nearest nestling. In a twink- 
ling he fell flat on his back and clutched me with both claws. Of all the grips I 
ever felt, that was most like a needle-toothed steel trap. I felt the twinge of pain 
as the sharp talons sank into the flesh. I cringed and the grip tightened. The 
slightest movement was the signal for a tenser grasp. It was the clutch that fast- 
ens in the prey and never relaxes till the stillness of death follows. I hung to the 
PORTRAIT OF HALF-GROWN BARN OWL. ABOUT 45 DAYS OLD 
Copyrighted by H. T. Bohlman and Wm. L. Finley 
