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A Rainy Day in the Woods. 
Saturday, December 26, 1891, we shoul- 
j dered our guns and pocketed our note-books, 
and started off for a tramp through the woods 
to see what we could collect and note in the 
bird line. By we I mean my cousin Drank 
and myself. 
It was cloudy and rather dark and rainy, 
just the day one would expect to see Owls and 
such, and therefore we concluded to go first to 
a strip of woods called Ober’s, and then 
through a large, dark woods and swamp called 
the Park. Birds (as usual here) were scarce, 
except, of course, the usual amount of Crows 
and Chickadees. By the way, if it were not 
for the latter the woods in winter would seem 
very lonesome to me. They always seem so 
sociable, and welcome you to the woods at all 
seasons. 
We had been walking on the road for 
awhile when I happened to glance into the 
woods, and ray eye caught sight of a small 
! object on a pine tree, which looked some like 
a bird but more like a pine knot. I kept my 
| eyes on it, however, and thought I saw it 
move. We went closer and found, sure 
, enough, it was a bird, and one we had been 
; looking for, a Saw - whet Ow l. He seemed very 
tame, so I thought we might capture him 
! without shooting. First I tried walking slowly 
around behind him with a long pole I had cut 
to hit him with. As fast as I walked he would 
turn his head until it got around exactly the 
the opposite way from what it should be. 
I thought then of the piece I read in the 
O. & O. about walking around and around an 
owl until he twisted his neck off. But I found 
this was not that kind of an Owl, for just then, 
almost too quick for me to see him, he turned 
liis head way around the other way. Finding 
I could not get out of his sight, to approach, I 
got my cousin to go around in front of him 
and execute a war-dance to attract his atten- 
tion, then I walked carefully up behind and 
tapped him (the Owl) on the head, and in a 
minute more he was in my hands, looking sur- 
prised and shocked at such treatment. We 
thought of keeping him alive at first, but 
finding he was going to be troublesome we 
decided it would be better to carry him home 
in a cone. 
The next birds noted were Golden-crowned 
Kinglets, in a flock of six or eight, of which 
we captured two. Soon after this we noted a 
large flock of Juncos and also a flock of Bed- 
polls. We captured one from the former and 
none from latter flock. In coming back 
through Hie woods we started one Buffed 
Grouse which I fired at but failed to get. 
In the course of the day we overturned an 
old stump and in it there was a large butterfly, 
which when released seemed to be as lively as 
though it were the middle of summer. Is this 
not an unusual occurrence ? I always thought 
they died in the fall.* 
We spent the rest of the day and evening in 
my workshop, mounting our specimens. 
Birds have been very scarce here this fall 
and winter so far. We saw more on this tiip 
than I have seen all the rest of the winter put 
together; and what we thought would be 
rather a dreary, wet trip turned out to be a 
very pleasant one, in spite of cloudiness and 
occasional showers. As I write this the Saw- 
wliet stands on the mantel, all wound with 
string, staring at me as though he knew just 
what I was writing about him. 
C. E. Brown. 
Beverly, Mass. 
* Not at all an unusual occurrence. The family 
Vanessa often hibernate in stone heaps and exposed 
buildings, and the first butterflies of the spring are 
these insects, which have been warmed by the approach 
of the sun.— E d. 
Jaa.O.& O. Vol. 17.1892 
