00 COED. 
Ripley 1 g Hill. 
1803 
E 'Jl’tr ry, 28 ui& not go out u til half-past five o* clod: P. • 
when. I walked to Ripley*s Hill via the Manse grounds. The 
evening was gloomy and forbidding and I saw no birds until, 
on my return from the hill, I was approaching the Simmons 
house whe . a Screech Owl began wailing, apparently in. the 
pines that shade the avenue, where I has© heard one several 
times before this winter. Quickening my pace, I was 
walking down Monument street towards the entrance to this 
avenue when the bird came flying across the open field on 
my left and alighted in a 1. r.je maple directly aer my head. 
It sat very still and looked, against the sky, like a 
block ball about as large as one*s fist. On the other aide 
of the same tree I now perceived another small black ball, 
apparently the duplicate of the first, hile I was wonder 
ing if it could be another Owl the first ball opened its 
wings aid flew across the triangular field to the large 
trees on the lane at the foot of the hill, flapping pretty 
rapidly and very steadily until near them when the wings 
were a t and the line of flight inclined first downward 
and the,:; sharply upward, the Pitching n\ .1 at the 
Red-shouldered Hawk) 
last precisely like a Buteo ( . ) when about to 
alight* 1 again eh ain;,, ercL hi a in the tree. The 
■ > 
next instant the other black ball followed and alighted 
again in the same tree with its mate, for they were 
evidently a. pair, just starting out on their evening hunt 
>7 
