V 
I then decided that the plucking operation must 
have ceased some time before I started and that the last 
feathers which I came to had floated down from some distance 
above the spot where I found them. Accordingly I kept on 
up stream, scanning both banks closely, a not very difficult 
task for they were nearly everywhere covered with snow, 
I was beginning to despair of success, however, when on 
reaching the sharp turn just above Holden's Hill I caught 
sight of a bunch of feathers clinging to a twig of one of 
the large white maples which line the west and south bank 
at this bend. Pushing in under these trees, I at once 
found abundant evidence that the Saw-whet had been picked 
and eaten there, but by what remained as much a mystery as 
ever. The murderer must have been a bird, however, for he 
had chosen as a dining-table a stout branch which extended 
out over the water at a height of about fifteen feet. This 
branch was smeared with blood and several feathers clung 
to it, while many others were caught among the button 
bushes beneath. On a snow bank at the water's edge I 
found still others as well as a few small fragments of flesh 
but these must have been cast down from above, for the 
snow bore no signs of footprints. 
On my way down river in the morning I started a 
Red-tailed Hawk from this very belt of maples, but yet I 
can scarcely believe that he was really the destroyer of the 
the poor little Owl. The latter was probably caught in the 
maples when he was eaten for Saw Whets are often found at 
this season in leafless trees on meadows or the banks of streams. 
(o 
