Following the old wood-path we presently reached the 
top of the hill where a most interesting experience awaited 
us. As we began ranbling about through the fine old woods, I 
noticed, every few steps, large pellets of fur and bones 
scattered about under the trees. I had just remarked to 
Purdie that a Great Horned Owl must have been living in the 
neighborhood and that it was - probably the same bird which I 
have heard several times this spring near Ball's Hill when, 
raising my eyes, I saw what I took at first to be a dead 
Sheep lying at the foot of a large pine about thirty yards 
off but on approaching nearer we discovered that the whitish- 
looking object, very conspicuous on the russet-brown surface 
of the ground, was two young Great Horned Owls, huddled close 
together. They were fully three-quarters grown and already 
weli-feathered, although enough down still adhered to the 
tips of the feathers to give them a generally whitish 
appearance. One of them opened its sale yellow eyes wide and 
stared at us with dull curionity but the other kept its eyes 
tightly closed. We did not go near enough to disturb them 
seriously and we^saw nothing of either of their parents. They 
had probably fallen from a nest about as large as a Crow's 
nest which we could see in a fork of the pine, directly over 
their heads and about i-4rft~y feet above the ground. By them 
lay the skin of a Rabbit ( ) apparently 
nearly entire and freshly torn off. The pine stands on 
level ground on the top of a ridge bordering the river meadow, 
me woods are at present about six acres in extent.and are 
almost wholly composed of large, old white pines. 
