The Long-eared Owl 
days. The youngsters were freezing faithfully, as usual,—all save the 
runt of the brood who still favored the cowering pose. The male parent 
had delivered himself of his quaint objurgations, and had retired from 
the scene in disgust. The female had caterwauled and cajoled and 
exploded and entreated by turns, all in vain. Matters seemed to have 
reached an impasse, and silence had fallen over the landscape. I had 
time to note the sage pinks, bright with morning dew, and the subtle, 
soothing, gray-greens of the sage itself, as it rose in billows over the 
slopes of the closely-investing hills. AH of a sudden the Owl left her 
perch, Hew to some distance and pounced upon the ground, where she 
could not well be seen through the intervening foliage. Upon the instant 
of the pounce, arose the piercing cries of a creature in distress, and 1, 
supposing that the bird in anger had fallen upon a harmless Flicker 
Taken in Washington Photo by the Author 
BABY MOUSERS 
which I knew dwelt in that neck of the woods, scrambled down instanter 
and hurried forward. The prompt binoculars revealed neither Flicker 
nor mouse. There was nothing whatever in the Owl’s talons. The 
victor and the victim were one and the same, and I was the dupe. Yet so 
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