LOGIST. 
75 ' 
\goin 
;oing to have a good time shooting White Iler- 
<xns, (as they are called here), let me say 
tlokt he will probably fail. And 1o illustrate let 
me Wve an account of a hunt for them I took a 
short time ago. After a long and somewhat diffi- 
cult search, I at last discovered one. . Now that 
Heron W’as not standing on a log by tile side of a 
creek waiting to be shot. He wpes out in the 
center of aUarge prairie where timbre was no op- 
portunity of getting within giyisbot. He was 
fully a half mife away, and to all appearance he 
would stay thWe. Now I have the conceit to 
consider myself\ pretty j^oocl sneak (for bird 
hunting) and I se^to wore to crawl up to him. 
There was not a spear of .grass on the whole plain 
to hide behind, or anything else for that matter, 
but finally I did succc&j in getting a single tuft 
between him and myself, and then began what 
would have appeared to a'dooker on, the attempt 
of an elephant to Approach a flea behind a needle. 
Bear in mind I \i/as crawlingSon hands and knees, 
inch by inch, in black mud, varying from three 
inches to a foot in depth. TliafyHeron was fully 
a half mile away when I started, and after two 
hours’ hard, work I had actually got within two 
gunshots of him, and was just beginning to thin _ 
how nice/ that skin would look in fhy cabine' 
when aivay he went for parts unknown. I was 
scarcely disappointed, not expecting to get him in 
the first place, but I intend visiting a placet where 
large numbers of these birds roost every flight, 
-andOh cn hope te - get -^u^- m i e go o d upeeimern- 
My Experience with Screech Owls. 
5. p. 
.&o, 
BY C. W. It., WASHINGTON, D. C. 
In May, 1883, I found a Screech Owl’s nest in 
a liollow 7 limb, about thirty-five feet from the 
ground. It contained four young, about a week 
old, which I carried home to raise as pets. The 
young were covered with white down, and, when 
found, were lying on a bed of decayed chips. 
About the nest were pieces of mouse skin, the 
feathers of a Towhee, and some gray pellets. 
The Owls were placed in a small box on a bed 
of sawdust, and were fed on raw meat. They 
soon grew large enough to hop on the top of the 
box, where they would sit and blink, and stare, 
by the hour. It soon became necessary to re- 
move them to better quarters, so a large cage was 
built in the shed, where they devoted themselves 
to hopping from one perch to another, all day 
long, for the first few days. One day one of the 
Owls found his way through the bars of the cage, 
and flew to the floor. An old lien with chickens 
came in presently, and recognizing him as an en- 
emy, went for him and killed the poor Owl in a 
as an arrow and noiseless as a floating j 
feather, he struck out for the intruder, | 
knocking- him over on the ground. For a j 
moment it was a confused heap of chaff 
and owls, then they parted and looked 
each other squarely in the eye, then Scop ' 
with one wing drawn out before his head 
advanced sidelong to renew the attack. 
Not wishing to qirovoke hostilities further 
I removed Asia from the enclosure, and 
j right glad was he to come. 
The young Scops are at this date, Oct. 
; 27, just commencing to come out in red 
plumage, having a number of feathers so 
! streaked on their back and wings. As I 
should have previously mentioned incuba- 
I tion occupied in this case only twenty-two 
] days. I have never heard of these owls 
/W i breeding in captivity before, yet if they or 
| any other species have done so, a record 
, of such would be appreciated by — F. II. 
Carpenter, Behobeth, Mass. 
Vlli. D«c. 1833 . 
Snow Buntings and Pileated Wood- 
peckers. / 
During a tramp over the mountains 
north of this place early in October I" saw 
large flocks of Snow Buntings (Blectro- 
phanes nivalis ) and was informed by a 
“native” thatvthey were to be found all 
through the spring and summer. Strong 
circumstantial evidence in favor of their 
breeding there, if Hte told tlfe truth— and I 
have no reason to doubt it. It is certainly 
cold enough out there, eye n in mid-summer 
to suit the most Boreafbird of my acquain- 
tance. I also saw .two Dileated Wood- 
peckers, (Hylotom/is prileabus.) I think 
they were wanderers, for tBe land has 
been pretty well- cleared by fires and log- 
gers. I never. 4aw but one of these birds 
alive before. /It was in the beginning of 
last winter/ near Dover, Del. There had 
1 been a “freeze” the night before and all 
the small puddles, and a good manj'of 
the big ones had a pretty thick coat of icei 
While walking near a creek I heard some- 
thing pounding on the ice, and then an an- 
grf “ squeal ” unmistakeably a bird’s. A 
roc 
