FOREST AND STREAM 
only the proverbial children’s-book glasses upon 
his beak to assure us that he knew everything 
there was to know, was a curiosity, to say the 
least. Near to the cabin there was a great tree. 
This tree had a cavity in it opening toward the 
south. In this cavity the hoot-owl had his nest. 
During the daylight hours he would sit there, 
head low in his feathers, ruminating with silent 
speculation upon the woes and miss-doings of 
this world. At night he would give voice to his 
feelings in mournful, plaintive-keyed admonitions 
that recalled ghosts and low-prowling goblins. 
Just what were his deeds in the course of the 
hours of darkness I cannot say; but he made his 
living somehow, and if I am not mistaken I 
think he was the fellow that hung around that 
suet. I say I do not know: I suspect. Anyhow, 
someone—I will not say who—in nocturnal asso¬ 
ciations hung around that very identical suet and 
gouged out certain appreciable hunks that could 
not have been done by the beaks of my tom-tits- 
But there, every day, surrounded innocently by 
feathers he would sit, rigid, sentinel-like, staring 
with glassy, unmoving eye-balls into the utter 
void. There is that about an owl that stimulates 
in me a certain spirit of feeling wonder. At the 
same time I cannot but connect his wisdom- 
impregnated majesty with vainglorious evil- 
doings, and with being the possessor of abilities 
hinging closely upon puritanic withcraft. By 
some hocus-pocus, hypnotizing, mesmerizing sys¬ 
tem he rules the woods, falling upon birds and 
mice as they show themselves. Undoubtedly the 
owl is one of the most dreaded creatures of wood 
and fen. That they are both destructive and 
beneficial also may be noted; but those who in¬ 
cline their thoughts, and regard for him, entirely 
toward the former manifestation, err greatly. 
Locate any owl’s nest, winter or summer, and 
you will find therein evidence of the great mice 
forage he unceasingly carries on. Indeed there 
are times one is startled by the number of mice 
an owl will kill, especially at the time the young 
are in the nest. 
Nor were these the only feathered people that 
come to our cabin. One spectacular being 
clothed liked a boulevardiering cavalier and hav¬ 
ing the mein of a finished chesterfieldian gentle¬ 
man was noted seated in an oak near the cabin 
one day. It did not take more than one sweep 
of the eye to place him. I smiled grimly and 
called Fred’s attention to him. It was a northern 
butcher-bird, the aggressive shrike, scientifically 
designated as Lanius Borealis. Perhaps I faintly 
understood and appreciated his purpose; he was 
hunting, not for suet and seed but for a more 
tempting, living morsel upon which to delve and 
tear—and that he had his penetrating, cold eye 
upon our birds at the box need not even be sug¬ 
gested. As we watched, another flew in and 
moved around among the limbs. Fearless they 
seemed; apparently dull and slow-moving, but 
this was a lie. Like a dart of livid lightning, at 
call of instinct they can be away with meaning 
screech after their prey. I was tempted to pass 
them by but shot both of them as they sat on the 
limb with a charge of fine shot. I added one for 
my collection, and Fred took the other- Both 
were splendid specimens, in prime of condition. 
There are noted in the life of the butcher-bird 
a number of curiosity-arousing traits. Traits are 
noted in other birds and animals as well, as for 
instance that one in special of the blue-jay. For 
no apparent reason will a blue-jay gather eat¬ 
ables, and at certain places will make a hiding 
place for them; yet rarely will he ever return 
and make use of this stock of provisions. Note 
in the life of the butcher-bird this trait, and 
though properly ridiculed by any but the astute 
observer, still it remains a common fact to pains¬ 
taking ornithologists. The shrike also has his 
larder. Usually this larder is found in some 
thorn-apple tree. Upon the barbs of this tree the 
bird will fasten his occasional kills, as though, 
instinctively, replenishing for a rainy day. And 
yet to the best of my knowledge the entire aggre¬ 
gation of mice and bird corpses are not made use 
of, for like as not he has these larders here, there 
and everywhere throughout the woods. The 
shrike to an astonishing degree emulates, in its 
devastating tendencies, the hawk. To witness a 
shrike tearing a bird to bits and feasting upon 
it is to witness a feathered Bluebeard rapacious 
to the last inch of him. 
Squirrels were occasional visitors to the cabin, 
and both red and grays of the specie were noted. 
They had by this time made their nests in the 
woods, some in high trees, others in smaller 
trees, the majority of them housing up in the hol¬ 
low trunks of the great giants. These nests are 
made with the most considerate of care. I have 
found as high as a bushel basket full of fine¬ 
drawn material taken from one tree. Just when 
this work of bringing in material is carried on 
is hard to say, for though, in all the time I have 
spent as an observer of Nature, never, really, 
do I remember when I saw a squirrel bringing in 
nest material. And yet as though by magic they 
appear, warm and snug, composed of finely- 
drawn bark and twig fibers; grasses and wild cot¬ 
ton. The entire collection makes a study in it¬ 
self to the nature-inquisitive and investigating, 
and so very neatly is this put together, with such 
intelligent remembrances to the warmth of it, 
that, come the coldest day, still the penetrating 
northwind is sheered off and the gray or red 
fellows sleep their sleep within, in the perfection 
of peace. But, warm days in winter coming, they 
will come out and dig into the snow for their 
acorns, which, it seems, they so mysteriously lay 
away beneath the leaves in autumn that they can 
readily locate them by winter, under that un¬ 
fathomable blanket of unbroken ermine- To the 
gratification of one’s senses he will see a squirrel 
dart down on that snow, run to a place, no differ¬ 
ent from any other place, and delving down, will 
soon thereafter bring out his nut or acorn. By 
what finely adjusted sense of heightened instinct 
this can be done, I do not know, and yet, time 
after time I have witnessed the act and have beer 
thrilled in my reflections, that, if animals do not 
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possess the distinguishing qualities of human in¬ 
telligence, at least they come within a hairs- 
breadth of that singular attainment. 
Jimmy was our pet red squirrel at Wood Hol¬ 
low 'Cabin. I offer for him no especial recom¬ 
mendations. He was a red squirrel and was as 
fearless as they construct them; in fact I never 
have witnessed an animal so wonderfully friend¬ 
ly, yet unobtrusive, in its actions. He would re¬ 
ceive a toothsome morse 1 ! for mastication and 
would run helter-skelter up a limb and would in¬ 
vestigate it, sitting with paws to face in a most 
ludicrous manner. The way in which a squirrel 
turns a nut makes a picture in itself of renowned 
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From Forest and Stream for November 
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