At the foot of a high, rocky hill about a mile from home stood an old
hollow linden snag at whose roots flowed a little brook. The clear waters
of this rill dashing over its pebbly bed made soft, sweet music, which,
mingling with the low silvery gurgle of the stream as it poured over a
rock into the creek, was delightfully suggestive of quiet and rest. Beyond
the creek stretched a bluegrass pasture, with peacefully grazing cattle.
On either side of this brooklet rose wooded hills so completely covered
with anemones and Dutchman's-breeches, so matted with ferns and May
apples, that the ragged rocks could scarcely be seen. Beneath was a
velvety carpet of green moss, and overhead the moving, living roof of
leaves shut out all but a few persistent sunbeams. The creek wound in and
out around the foot of the hill, its bank dotted here and there with
little mounds of blue clay, which some bachelor crawfish had taken from
his well-like house. Under almost every stone in its waters dwelt some
mother crawfish with her family, whom she carefully carried under her
finlike tail whenever she found it necessary to move. Sunfish and chubs
played in the sunny shallows or slept in the shady deep under some tree.
The snag was dry and solid, and one would have had to look far to find a
more satisfactory place for an owl's nest. Here was hatched a member of
this interesting family whom I will call Father Screech Owl, for I
afterward knew him as such.
As he with his brothers and sisters became old enough to look out on
the wide world, their surroundings made an indelible impression on his
mind. Like most children, he thought the place where he lived the most
beautiful in the world. The young squirrels playing among the trees, the
bobtailed mice in the pasture, the abundance of worms and grasshoppers-
all appealed to him strongly. Best of all were the fish, so abundant, so
easy to get, and so dear to the stomach of every owl. No doubt he thought
his surroundings ideal for a home. At any rate, when he was grown he chose
a similar snag on the bank of a similar creek about a quarter of a mile
from my home, to set up housekeeping. But I am getting ahead of my story.
Young animals have three ways of gaining the knowledge that is so
necessary to the preservation of their lives in the battle that each must
carry on against the rest of the world for existence-
instinct, the example of their parents, and their own experience. In young
birds the first of these is the most important, yet in the youngest there
is a great difference in shrewdness and ability. Two birds from one brood
often differ as widely as two children in the same family. Because one
bird is bright, it does not follow that all the members of the family will
be equally so. Thus it was that when a certain barefooted boy came wading
along the creek, watching the crawfish mothers gather up their young after
being forced to release them, and happening to notice the old hollow snag,
climbed it, and reached his hand into the hole to see what it contained,
our young owl hero promptly fell over on his back and fastened his talons
in the boy's hand. In some haste he jerked it out, whereupon the owl came
too.
Every grown owl knows the trick of dropping on his back and presenting
his claws to any enemy he must fight, but this baby had certainly never
seen anything of this sort done. His brothers and sisters made no effort
to defend themselves; they would learn the art later. There are precocious
birds and animals as well as children, and with the wildlings such
individuals develop into leaders if all goes well.
Here was a new story for the boy to learn, so after the owl and his
brothers and sisters had each received due attention, they were carefully
replaced in their home, and left to grow up as if nothing had happened.
The boy had learned a lesson about putting his hand where it did not
belong, and the owl had learned to use his claws. This explains why it was
that a pilfering gray squirrel entering the same hole a few days later,
expecting to steal a dinner, suddenly remembered that he was a vegetarian,
and left in undignified haste, not even pausing to say good-by. Neither
was it difficult to account for his blindness when I caught him in his own
hollow tree not long afterward. Young Mr. Screech Owl had added another
item to his notebook of experience, and in the future would feel quite
safe to live in a hollow tree that had been the home of a fox squirrel.
In a few days the young owl was old enough to come out of his home nest
and sit on a limb close by. Now another lesson must be learned-
a very simple lesson, and one that every screech owl who makes any
pretense of wisdom must know; for his peace and often his life depends
upon the knowledge. It was to find a limb as nearly his own color as
possible, and then sit perfectly quiet on it, unless absolutely certain
that he was discovered.
Mr. Screech Owl obtained his working knowledge of the principle of this
lesson on this wise: One of the first days out of the nest a blue jay came
very near. He sat bolt upright for a time-
simply a knot on the limb- and all went well.
The blue jay hopped about him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary in spite
of his keen eyes. Finally he hopped around behind Mr. Screech Owl, who
allowed his desire to see what was going on to get the better of his
discretion, and turned his head. No move, however slight, escapes the eye
of a blue jay, so immediately he set up the cry of "Thief!
thief!" All the birds in the neighborhood heard, and came to help
punish the young owl, who had a sorry time of it. When finally he escaped,
wounded and bleeding, he was wiser by another lesson well learned.
Large owls never learn this trick, and many a luckless member of the
tribe has sacrificed his life to an inordinate desire to see what was
going on, but it is a very inexperienced screech owl who does not know
better than to gratify his native curiosity by the slightest move.
This is the greatest lesson of the woods. The lights and shadows fall
in such various ways and the denizens of the forest have been so clothed
that it is next to impossible to distinguish them from the objects about
them unless they move. The whippoorwill sits on the side of a log, looking
so like a knot that he will deceive even the eyes of the elect in
woodcraft. Twice have I placed my hand on these birds before seeing them.
No one is more aware of this protective coloring and resemblance than
the wildlings themselves. Squirrels are usually seen because they persist
in moving as the observer moves. A successful wild turkey hunter sits down
by the side of a large tree and calls with his quill, making no attempt to
move, even when the turkey stands directly facing him. In point of fact,
he is more likely to be seen, and so miss getting his game if the turkey
is on the opposite of the tree.
An evening or two later Mr. Screech Owl saw his father mother act in
what seemed to him a very strange manner. They were standing in the edge
of the creek, fluttering their wings and splashing the water into spray
about them. He looked on a little while, wondered, stepped in, copied
their action- and learned to bathe. Owls bathe
at night or after sunset; this is why so few people ever see them. Yet
they always bathe, even in the coldest weather. In the winter they find a
hole in the ice and take a cool spray as regularly as in the summer.
Another thing Mr. Screech Owl learned about this time was to catch
fish. In all probability he would never have learned the joy-
to an owl- of this sport had not his parents
lived on the creek bank and understood the art. He would sit on a stone or
a log in the edge of the water till a fish came near enough and then
pounce on it, sometimes diving completely under water. Many owls never
learn to catch fish, though they are very fond of them.
Another important thing for our young owl to learn was to fly
noiselessly, and in such a direction that his shadow would fall behind
him. It is very still of a night, and he must go in and out among the
thickest trees and cross the broadest meadows so softly that not a bird or
a mouse can hear him; for there is not a mouse in the field that does not
know the meaning of the sound of wings or of a sudden shadow falling
across his path. So the owl flits silently over the meadows, keeping a
keen eye on every well-worn road and woe betide the luckless mouse that
happens to be traveling that way! If the moon shines bright, the owl
seldom hunts much, and if he does he hunts "up moon" as
diligently as a wolf hunts "up the wind."
An owl often goes hungry until he learns the lesson of noiseless
flight, but when he does acquire it, many dark tragedies which never find
their way into the newspapers are enacted in our fields. During the summer
nights the screech owl lives mostly on night-flying beetles and moths,
catching them on the wing; but when these become scarce, he makes war on
birds, mice, and even bats, though it is doubtful if he ever eats bats
till forced to do so by hunger. The screech owl devours a great many
cutworms in the early summer, being about the only bird that does eat this
pest, which lies buried in the ground during the day, coming to the
surface only at night. Screech owls seem to prefer English sparrows to any
other kind of bird.
I once heard of a screech owl that flew into a poultry yard one
bitterly cold day in winter, and fastening his talons in the back of a
large hen, tried to carry her off. He was caught before he could get his
talons loose, and when examined, was found to be scarcely more than a
bunch of feathers. The poor fellow had been so reduced by hunger that he
had grown desperate.
By August our owl had acquired considerable experience in the way of
the wood world. He had a new suit of reddish-brown clothes, and thought
that he was old enough to set up housekeeping on his own account. Every
night he flew far and wide, sounding the love song of his race -"Blala-la-la-la!"
First in one tree, then in another, he would sit, calling, calling,
calling, in tones so mournful and disconsolate that all the farmers in the
neighborhood thought he was announcing that there would be frost in six
weeks.
I do not know when or how he found her, but I do know that Mr. Screech
Owl won just the sweetest, fluffiest little mate imaginable, and brought
her to live in an old hollow snag that stood on the bank of a small creek
only about two hundred yards from where Joe, the blue jay, was born. Here
the pair lived happily for two or three years, and there they might have
stayed longer, but for one bitterly cold winter. For a night or two before
the great storm the spirit of the wildlings had warned them that severe
weather was coming, so they stored a good supply of mice in their hollow
tree. Ordinarily it would have been sufficient to last them till hunting
weather came again. But this was no common storm; the snow sifted down for
days, while the howling winds piled the mountainlike drifts higher and
higher. In their hollow tree the owls heard, and sat a little closer
together. Occasionally the storm would abate for a day, but during the
night it howled as wildly as ever. For fully two weeks it was impossible
to stir from the tree lest they perish in the storm.
The supply of food was soon gone; then came famine. Now the owls must
hunt every night, fair or foul, but the field mice, hitherto so abundant,
either were dead or were staying in their underground dens, where they had
stored enough food to last them for months; the quails were safely buried
in some snowbank or hidden under some protecting brush heap; the winter
kings and snowbirds had taken refuge under the cattlesheds or in the
evergreen trees that stood in the very dooryards of neighboring
farmhouses; and the English sparrows had gone to the cities, where they
could quarrel on the streets all day long, and creep into sheltered, snug
corners of buildings at night. But Mr. Screech Owl had been born in the
woods, far from human habitations, and he did not like to visit them. At
last, however, he was forced to yield his prejudices to hunger. Then he
and his mate came to our cattle shed every few nights, I know, for they
always left proof of their visits in the feathers and blood scattered on
the snow. Don't shudder; that is no more than men do every day and think
nothing of it. And men are not driven to it by hunger.
It happened one morning that Mrs. Screech Owl was overtaken by daylight
while still at the shed. This was a serious situation. Daylight is
blinding enough in the summer; in the winter, when everything is covered
with snow, it is unbearable. About a hundred yards from the house stood a
hollow tree, where a red-headed woodpecker had made his home for several
years, and where, later, a fox squirrel, taking unlawful possession, had
reared a family.
Mrs. Screech Owl realized that she must do something, so just as we
were coming into the shed to milk, she flew out. She could not see to go
home; to sit in a bare tree all day meant to freeze. In her dazed,
bewildered state, she happened to fly close to this hollow tree, saw the
opening, and entered it as the only thing to do.
The nest suited her exactly, and she immediately made up her mind that
Mr. Owl and herself had better move there at once, for their old home in
the snag was getting leaky. But Mr. Screech Owl developed an unexpected
obstinacy, and flatly refused. The place was entirely too near the house.
Ever since the discovery of America, had it not been a maxim among owls,
"Beware of white men"? (Red men can be trusted; they never kill
owls except to eat, and that only in a pinch.) Thus came about the first
quarrel in the little family. Mr. Screech Owl stayed in their old home,
and positively refused to move; Mrs. Screech Owl lived in the new, and
would not return. Who knows how the disagreement might have ended had I
not taken a hand in the matter.
One afternoon I went to the snag, caught Mr. Screech, brought him up to
the house, and took him into the kitchen. After playing with him for a
while I turned him loose. In a day or two brother caught him and brought
him up again; and so having learned where to find him, every day or two
for some time we would bring him to the house till he either learned that
we would not hurt him or decided that his own home was unsafe. Eventually
he and his mate compromised by taking up their abode in the barn, and
there they stayed most of the time till spring. They would sit on the
sills during the day and at night would catch the mice in the haymow or
the cornbin.
I had a number of pigeons who lived in boxes in the same barn, and
though I often found an owl in one end of a box and a pigeon crowded up at
the other, I never knew the owls to eat one. When I appeared, the pigeon
would fuss up and utter a short note, and the owl would crowd into the
other end of the box and snap his bill very savagely. But nothing ever
came of it unless I caught him. Then he would scratch like a little fury.
As soon as the coldest weather was over, and the first breath of spring
was felt in the air- long before the pigeons
had hatched their first brood- the owls left
the barn and moved into the hollow tree in the yard, greatly to the
disgust of the fox squirrel, who had cherished designs on that tree
herself. So Mrs. Screech had her way at last.
With the rush of spring work and the return of numerous other friends
of long and loved acquaintance, I forgot or neglected the owls. One
Sabbath afternoon as I was taking my usual stroll, I passed the hollow
tree, and hit it with a club. Mrs. Owl flew out, and Mr. Screech, who was
sleeping on a large brown lichen just above the nest, was so startled that
he nervously lifted his wings just a little, and I saw him. This was the
second and last time that I ever knew him to make the mistake of moving. I
hit the side of the tree again. He might have been made of stone for all
the attention he paid to it. But the silly little creatures inside made a
noise, and of course I climbed up and reached in. The whole tree seemed
full of owls, but none of them knew enough to scratch. I took them out and
set them on a log six of them- the prettiest
fluffy, soft, gray owl babies I have ever seen, and almost as large as
their mother.
Poor Mrs. Owl! She flew frantically back and forth, and even ventured
to strike me in the back a few times. Father Owl flitted about rather
nervously at first, but soon settled down on his lichen in peace. Whether
he manifested the indifference because he cared less for his babies than
she or because he remembered that he had been caught several times and not
hurt, I cannot tell.
I fed the young owls all the grasshoppers they could eat, played with
them for a while, and then put them back in the nest. After that I visited
them and played with them often. At such times Father Screech Owl would
sit bolt upright and never so much as wink, and even Mother Owl soon
ceased to try to fight. As work grew heavier, my visits were less
frequent, and when at last I called one Sabbath, the tree was empty. I
searched in the leafiest trees near, and as I found nothing I supposed my
friends were gone and had forgotten me. Really, it looked as if they might
have forsaken their home to avoid meeting me! So we often misjudge our
friends. When we do not understand the reason behind their action, how
readily we ascribe to them a motive of our own.
At that time I was sleeping upstairs by an open window. Near the house
grew a large cherry tree, whose branches reached so close that in the
early summer I could pick the ripe fruit from the window. One night in
August I was awakened by a soft, pathetic "Bla-la-la-la-la-la!"
I listened, and soon it came again. Going over to the window, I looked
out, and there was the whole screech owl family as near to the screen as
they could get. They did not stir even when I moved closer to them. One
would utter a pathetic little "Bla-la-la-la-la," and then the
others would draw their feet up closer in their feathers and say, "Ou-u-u-u-u-u!"
It was wonderfully sweet, yet with a plaintive note of pathos and
loneliness in it. In my mind's ear I can hear it yet, and the memory
always has a suggestion of dreamy rest, because the family came night
after night and sat there for hours, wailing while I slept.
In September I went away to school, and have never seen anything of my
owls since. At my last visit to the old home I looked for each tree that I
had once known as the home of the screech owl, but found nothing except
three decayed stumps. The hills near Mr. Screech's birthplace, that were
once so beautiful, now have only a straggling tree here and there. The
flowers that were once so abundant have disappeared; the moss and ferns
are no more. The little creek, once so full of life and beauty, is now dry
and deserted, even by the crawfish that used to dig their diminutive wells
by its side. The rivulet has hushed its song. So does nature sympathize
with the destruction of her children. The trees are gone, the wild birds
and flowers have gone, the rains that made the remaining acres productive
are going and all for the paltry price of wood at three dollars a cord!
WHAT'S
NEW? 
