menu_book Chapter 5

CHAPTER V. SHARP EYES. could go on opening eye after eye to the number of say a dozen or more what would he see perhaps not the invisible not the odors of flowers nor the fever germs in the air not the infinitely small of the microscope nor the infinitely distant of the telescope this would require not more eyes so much as an eye constructed with more and different lenses but would he not see with augmented power

within the natural limits of vision at any rate some persons seem to have opened more eyes than others. They see with such force and distinctness. Their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open? How many did Henry Thoreau? How many did Audubon? How many does the hunter, matching his sight against the keen and alert sense of a deer or a moose or a fox or a wolf?

Not outward eyes, but inward. We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general features or outlines of things. Whenever we grasp the special details and characteristic markings that this mask covers, science confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to discriminate the birds or the plants or the geological features of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added. Of course, one must

not only see sharply, but read or write what he sees. The facts in the life of nature that are transpiring about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. For the writing is in a cipher, and he must furnish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse

from a horse stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls, scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable, dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable and was presently captured by the farmer.

What did she want, was the query. What but a horsehair for her nest, which was in an apple tree nearby, and she was so bent on having one that I have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined her nest and found it sewed through and through with several

long horsehairs so that the bird persisted in her search till the hair was found. Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our eyes are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and wrote an account of it in his newspaper.

It is too good not to be true. A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow, and much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered his graduations over it, he went away in a quest of his mate.

His next-door neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and seized the feather. And here the wit of the bird came out. for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches then went home and when her neighbor returned with his mate was innocently

employed about her own affairs the proud male finding his feather gone came out of his box in a high state of excitement and with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue rushed into the cot of the female not finding his goods and chattels there as he had expected he stormed around found a while, abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd thief went

and brought the feather home and lined her own domicile with it. I was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young one in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada or harvest fly, and after bruising it while on the ground, flew with it to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. It was a large morsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability

to dispose of it, for she stood near and watched its effort with great solicitude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, but made no headway in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him and flew to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly. Then she again placed it in his beak and seemed to say, There, try it now, and sympathized

so thoroughly with his efforts that she repeated many of his motions and contortions. But the great fly was unyielding, and indeed seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the beak that held it. The young bird fluttered and fluttered and screamed, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, till the anxious parent again seized the morsel and carried it to an iron railing, where she came down upon it for the space of a minute with all the force and momentum her beak could command.

Then she offered it to her young a third time, but with the same result as before, except that this time the bird dropped it. But she was at the ground as soon as the cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew some distance to a high board fence where she sat motionless for some moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird approached her and said very plainly, and I thought rather curtly, give me that bug. But she quickly resented his interference and flew farther away, where she sat apparently quite discouraged when I last saw her.

The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recurring to him. His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a new chapter in the progress of the season. Things are never quite the same after one has heard that note. The past spring, the males came about a week in advance of the females. A fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard all the time, apparently awaiting the arrival

of his mate. He called and warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within earshot and could be hurried up. Now he warbled half angrily or upbraidingly, then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a plaintive, faraway manner.

He would half open his wings and twinkle them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knot hole in an old apple tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine, confidential warble, the old, old story.

But the female flew to a near tree and uttered her plaintive homesick note. The male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion. But the other said nay, and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going, or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff, and cried

out in a tone that said plainly enough wait a minute one word please and flew swiftly in pursuit he won her before long however and early in april the pair were established in one of the four or five boxes i had put up for them but not until they had changed their minds several times as soon as the first brood had flown and while they were yet under their parents care they began another nest in one of the other boxes the female as usual doing all the work and the male all the

complimenting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother bird was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watching them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she appeared, the mother bluebird would set up that pitiful, melodious plaint. One morning the cat was standing beside me when the bird came with her beak loaded with building material and alighted above me to survey

the place before going into the box. When she saw the cat, she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could not keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. After the cat had gone away, the bird's alarm subsided, till, presently seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and, without going in to arrange them as was her want,

flew away in evident relief. In the cavity of an apple tree but a few yards off, and much nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high holes or golden shafted woodpeckers took up their abode. A knot hole which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day as I passed near, I heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating down

obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. The chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the interior. The woodpeckers are not nest builders, but rather nest carvers. The time seemed very short before the voices of the young were heard in the heart of the old tree, at first feebly but waxing stronger day by day until they could be heard many rods distant. When I put my hand upon the trunk of the tree, they would set up an eager, expectant chattering.

But if I climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a warning note. Long before they were fully fledged, they clambered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could stand in the opening at a time there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one, aside from the advantages it had when food was served. It looked out upon the

great shining world into which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a consideration also, for the interior of a high hole's dwelling is not sweet. When the parent birds came with the food, the young one in the opening did not get it all, but after he had received a portion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one, he would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evidently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life

was two or three days in advance of them. His voice was loudest, and his head oftenest at the window. But I noticed that when he had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it uncomfortable in his rear, and, after fidgeting about a while, he would be compelled to back down. But retaliation was then easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments at that lookout. They would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity as if the world had suddenly lost all

its charms for them. This bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest. For two days before that event he kept his position in the opening most of the time, and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to encourage his exit. As I stood looking at him one afternoon and noting his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution, seconded I have no doubt from the rear, and launched forth upon his untried wings.

They served him well and carried him about fifty yards uphill the first heat. the second day after the next in size and spirit left in the same manner then another till only one remained the parent bird ceased their visits to him and for one day he called and called till their ears were tired of the sound his was the faintest heart of all then he had none to encourage him from behind he left the nest and clung to the outer bowl of the tree and yelped and piped for an hour longer then he committed himself to his wings and went his way like the rest a young farmer in the western part of new york who has a sharp discriminating eye sends me some interesting notes about a tame high hole he once had did you ever notice says he that the high hole never eats anything that he cannot pick up with his tongue at least this was the case with a young one i took from the nest and tamed he could thrust out his

tongue two or three inches and it was amusing to see his efforts to eat currents from the hand he would run out his tongue and try to stick it to the current failing in that he would bend his tongue around it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk but he never succeeded the round fruit would roll and slip away every time. He never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was in constant use to find out the nature of everything he saw. A nail hole in a

board, or any similar hole, was carefully explored. If he was held near the face, he would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust his tongue into it. In this way, he gained the respect of a number of half-grown cats who were around the house. I wished to make them familiar to each other, so there would be less danger of their killing him. So I would take them both on my knee, when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes, and, leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman

levels his rifle, he would remain so a minute when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was held by the cats to be very mysterious, being struck in the eye by something invisible to them. They soon acquired such a terror of him that they would avoid him and run away whenever they saw his bill turned in their direction. He would never swallow a grasshopper, even when it was placed in his throat. He would shake himself until he had thrown it out of his mouth. His best

hold was ants he was never surprised at anything and never was afraid of anything he would drive the turkey gobbler and the rooster he would advance upon them holding one wing up as high as possible as if to strike with it and shuffle along the ground toward them scolding all the while in a harsh voice i feared at first that they might kill him but i soon found that he was able to take care of himself i would turn over stones and dig into ant hills for him and he would lick

up the ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going into his mouth unceasingly. I kept him till late in the fall when he disappeared, probably going south, and I never saw him again. My correspondent also sends me some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He says a large gooseberry bush, standing in the border of an old hedgerow in the midst of open fields and not far from his house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and after an

interval of a year for two seasons more. This gave him a good chance to observe them. He says the mother bird lays a single egg and sits upon it a number of days before laying the second, so that when he has seen the young bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the nest at once. So far as I have seen, this is the settled practice, the young leaving the nest one at a time to the number of six or eight. The young will have quite the look of the

young of the dove in many respects. When nearly grown, they are covered with long blue pin feathers as long as darning needles, without a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious feathers and misshapen body, the young bird is anything but handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, as many young birds do,

but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when touched. He also notes the unnatural indifference of the mother bird when her nest and young are approached. She makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent perfect unconcern. These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the cuckoo is occasionally found in the nest of other birds, raise the inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the European species, which always foists its eggs upon other birds, or whether, on the other hand, it is not mending its manners in this respect. It has but little to unlearn or to forget in the one case, but great progress to make in the other.

How far is its rudimentary nest, a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds, from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely mottled nest of the goldfinch or kingbird, and what a gulf between its indifference toward its young and their solicitude. Its irregular manner of laying also seems better suited to a paradise like our cowbird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest builder.

this observer like most sharp-eyed persons sees plenty of interesting things as he goes about his work he one day saw a white swallow which is of rare occurrence he saw a bird a sparrow he thinks fly against the side of a horse and fill its beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal he saw a shrike pursue a chickadee when the latter escaped by taking a refuge in a small hole in a tree one day in early spring he saw two hen hawks that were circling and screaming high in the air

approach each other, extend a claw, and clasping them together, fall toward the earth, flapping and struggling as if they were tied together. On nearing the ground, they separated and soared aloft again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other. He further relates a curious circumstance of finding a hummingbird in the upper part of a barn with its bill stuck fast in a crack

of one of the large timbers, dead, of course, with wings extended, and as dry as a chip. The bird seems to have died as it had lived, on the wing, and its last act was indeed a ghastly parody of its living career. Fancy this nimble, flashing sprite, whose life was past probing the honeyed depths of flowers, at last thrusting its bill into a crack in a dry timber in a hayloft, and with spread wings ending its existence. When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk with four insects about cattle and moving herds in the field.

my farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day as he was mowing in the meadow with a mowing machine it had been foggy for two days and the swallows were very hungry and the insects stupid and inert when the sound of his machine was heard the swallows appeared and attended him like a brood of hungry chickens he says there was a continued rush of purple wings over the cut bar and just where it was causing the grass to tremble and fall without his assistance the

swallows would doubtless have gone hungry yet another day of the hen hawk he has observed that both male and female take part in incubation. I was rather surprised, he says, on one occasion, to see how quickly they can change places on the nest. The nest was in a tall beach, and the leaves were not yet fully out. I could see the head and neck of the hawk over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk coming down through the air at full speed. I expected

he would alight nearby, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest, his mate getting out of the way, barely in time to avoid being hit. It seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without danger to the eggs. The king bird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will worry a bear. It is by his persistence and audacity, not by any injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. The king bird seldom

more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and between its wings and making a great ado, but my correspondent says he once saw a king bird riding on a hawk's back. The hawk flew as fast as possible, and the king bird sat upon his shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight. tweaking his feathers no doubt and threatening to scalp him the next moment that near relative of the king bird the great crested flycatcher has one well-known peculiarity he appears never to consider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snakeskin my alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up in onion skin and make off with it either deceived by it or else thinking it a good substitute for the coveted material

one day in may walking in the woods i came upon the nest of a whipper will or rather its eggs for it builds no nest two elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves my foot was within a yard of the mother bird before she flew i wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the bird so i came to the place many times and had a look It was always a task to separate the bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a few feet of her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with his eye, as it were, and refused to be baffled. The sticks and leaves and bits of black or dark brown bark were all exactly copied in the bird's plumage.

And then she did sit so close, and simulate so well a shapeless, decaying piece of wood or bark. twice I brought a companion and guiding his eye to a spot noted how difficult it was for him to make out there in full view upon dry leaves any semblance to a bird when the bird returned after being disturbed she would alight within a few inches of her eggs and then after a moment's pause hobble awkwardly upon

them after the young had appeared all the wit of the bird came into play I was on hand the next day I think the mother bird sprang up when I was within a pace of her and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too and as the leaf started the young started and being of the same color to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a trying task to any eye I came the next day when the same tactics were

repeated once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and nearly hit it the young are covered with a reddish down like a young partridge and soon follow their mother about when disturbed they give but one leap then settled down perfectly motionless and stupid with eyes closed parent bird on these occasions made frantic efforts to decoy me away from her young she would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast and a spasm like that of death would run through her tremulous outstretched

wings and prostrate body she kept a sharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took and if it did not she was quickly cured and moving about to some other point tried to draw my attention as before when followed she always lighted upon the ground dropping down in a sudden peculiar way the second or third day both old and young had disappeared the whipper will walks as awkwardly as a swallow which is as awkward as a man in a bag and yet she manages to lead her young about

the woods the latter i think moved by leaps and sudden spurts their protective coloring shielding them most effectively wilson once came upon the mother bird and her brood in the woods and though they were at his very feet was so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to give up the search much disappointed when he perceived something like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves and on stooping down discovered it to be a young whippoorwill seemingly asleep

Wilson's subscription of the young is very accurate as its downy covering does look precisely like a slight moldiness returning a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil he had forgotten he could find neither old nor young it takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods motionless upon the leaves the sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell in hounds and pointers and yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing

I think he sees it as soon as it sees him and before it suspects itself seen what a training to the eye is hunting to pick out the game from its surroundings the grouse from the leaves the gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely the red fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the stubble, or the white hair from the snow, requires the best powers of this sense.

A woodchuck, motionless in the fields or upon a rock, looks very much like a large stone or boulder, yet a keen eye knows the difference at a glance a quarter of a mile away. A man has a sharper eye than a dog or a fox or than any of the wild creatures, but not so sharp an ear or nose.

But in the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the bushes or behind the fence near which he alights. What advantage the bird surely has, and that is, owing to the form, structure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision. Indeed,

can probably see in nearly every direction at the same instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically. His brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of the zenith without a movement of the head the bird on the other hand takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance i find i see almost without effort nearly every bird within sight in the field or wood i pass

through a flit of a wing a flirt of the tail or enough though the flicking leaves do all conspire to hide them and that with like ease the birds see me though unquestionably the chances are immensely in their favor the eye sees what it has the means of seeing truly you must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush. The eye must have the purpose and aim. No one ever yet found the walking fern who did not have the walking fern in his mind. A person whose eye is

full of Indian relics picks them up in every field he walks through. One season I was interested in the tree frogs, especially the tiny piper that one hears about the woods and brushy fields. The hyla of the swamps become a denizen of the trees. I had never seen him in this new role, but this season, leaving hylas in mind, or rather being ripe for them, I several times came across them. One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I captured two. They leaped before me as doubtless

as they had done many times before, but though I was not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the treetops, when one of these Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-jellowing leaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the corner of my

eye, and yet bagged him, because I had already made him my own. Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and decisive gazing. Not by a first casual glance, but by a steady, deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things discovered. You must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. The sharpshooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal certainty from a stump,

or a rock or a cap on a pole. The pharaenologists do well to locate not only form, color, and weight in the region of the eye, but also a faculty which they call individuality, that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes specific points and differences. It seizes upon and preserves the individuality of the thing. Persons frequently describe to me some

bird they have seen or heard and ask me to name it, but in most cases the bird might be anyone of a dozen, or else it is totally unlike any bird found in this continent. They have either seen falsely or else vaguely. Not so the farm youth who wrote me one winter day that he had seen a single pair of strange birds, which he describes as follows.

They were about the size of the chippy. The tops of their heads were red, and the breast of the male was of the same color, while that of the female was much lighter. Their rumps were also faintly tinged with red. If I have described them so that you would know them, please write me their names.

There can be little doubt, but the young exuber had seen a pair of red pawls, a bird related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes to us in the winter from the far north. Another time, that same youth wrote that he had seen a strange bird, the color of a sparrow, that alighted on fences and buildings as well as upon the ground, and that walked. This last fact shoved the youth's discriminating eye and settled the case.

I knew it to be a species of the lark, and from the size, color, season, etc., the tit lark. But how many persons would have observed that the bird walked instead of hopped? Some friends of mine who lived in the country tried to describe to me a bird that built a nest in a tree within a few feet of the house.

As it was a brown bird, I should have taken it for a wood thrush, had not the nest been described as so thin and loose that from beneath the eggs could be distinctly seen. The most pronounced feature in the description was the barred appearance of the underside of the bird's tail. I was quite at sea until one day when we were driving out, a cuckoo flew across the road

in front of us, when my friends exclaimed, There is our bird! I had never known a cuckoo to build near a house, and I had never noticed the appearance the tail presents when viewed from beneath. But if the bird had been described in its most obvious features, as slender, with a long tail, cinnamon brown above, and white beneath, with a curved bill, anyone who knew

the bird would have recognized the portrait. We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked for its specific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of the leaf of the tulip tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw the outline of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and to follow it up.

Most of the facts of nature, especially in the life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see the play because we do not look intently enough. The other day I was sitting with a friend upon a high rock in the woods, near a small stream, when we saw a water snake swimming across a pool toward the opposite bank.

Any eye would have noted it, perhaps nothing more. A little closer and sharper gaze revealed the fact that the snake bore something in its mouth, which, as we went down to investigate, proved to be a small catfish, three or four inches long. The snake had captured it in the pool and, like any other fisherman, wanted to get its prey to dry land, although itself lived mostly in the water. Here, we said, is being enacted a little tragedy that would have escaped any but sharp eyes. The snake, which was itself small, had the fish, by the throat, the hold of vantage among all creatures, and clung to it with great tenacity.

The snake knew that its best tactics was to get upon dry land as soon as possible. It could not swallow its victim alive, and it could not strangle it in the water. For a while it tried to kill its game by holding it up out of the water, but the fish grew heavy, and every few moments its struggles brought down the snake's head. This would not do. Compressing the fish's throat would not shut off its breath under such circumstances,

so the wily serpent tried to get ashore with it, and after several attempts succeeded in effecting a landing on a flat rock. But the fish died hard. Catfish do not give up the ghost in a hurry. Its throat was becoming congested, but the snake's distended jaws must have ached.

It was like a petrified grape. Then the spectators became very curious and close in their scrutiny, and the snake determined to withdraw from the public gaze and finish the business in hand to its own notions. but when gently but firmly remonstrated with by my friend with his walking stick it dropped the fish and retreated in high dungeon

Beneath a stone in the bed of the creek the fish with a swollen and angry throat went its way also Birds I say have wonderfully keen eyes Throw a fresh bone or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter and see how soon the crows will discover it and be on hand if It be near the house or barn the crow that first discovers it will alight near it to make sure he is not deceived then he will go away and soon return with a companion the two alight a few yards from the

bone and after some delay during which the vicinity is sharply scrutinized one of the crows advances boldly to within a few feet of the coveted prize here he pauses and if no trick is discovered and the meat be indeed meat he seizes it and makes off one midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple tree near the house and scattered some corn there I had not seen a blue jay for weeks Yet that very day one found my corn and after that several came daily and partook of it

holding the kernels under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them vigorously Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes Still I was surprised to see how quickly down he found out some bones that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be pounded up for the hens and Going out to the barn. I often disturbed him making a meal off the bite of meat that still adhered to them Look intently enough at anything said a poet to me one day

And you will see something that would otherwise escape you I thought of the remark as I sat on a stump and an opening of the woods one spring day I saw a small hawk approaching he flew to a tall tulip tree and alighted on a large limb near the top He eyed me and I eyed him Then the bird disclosed a trait that was new to me He hopped along the limb to a small cavity near the trunk when he thrust in his head and pulled out some small object and fell to eating it

After he had partaken of it for some minutes. He put the remainder back in his larder and flew away I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes beneath the tree. The hawk, then, commonly called the chicken hawk, is as provident as a mouse or a squirrel and lays by a store against a time of need, but I should not have discovered the fact had I not held my eye on him. An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotion among them. In May or June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird.

He goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket He is robbing birds nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it But in the fall none so quick and loud to cry thief thief as he one December morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple tree near my house How they found the owl out is a mystery since it never ventures forth in the light of day

But they did and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis I suspect the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peeping into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsuspecting bird had probably entered the cavity prospecting for a place for next year's nest, whilst looking out a likely place to pass a cold night, and then had rushed out with important news. A boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when Bruin was at home

could not be more astonished and alarmed than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a decayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined the jays in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day in the old apple tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm and approached to with an eye shot. The bluebirds were cautious and hovered about, uttering their peculiar twittering calls. But the jays were bolder and took turns looking in at the cavity and deriding the poor shrinking owl.

A jay would alight in the entrance of the hole and flirt and peer in attitudinize, and then fly away, crying, thief, thief, thief, thief, at the top of his voice. I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just describe the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncomfortable.

I placed him in the loft of an outhouse in hopes of getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very willing prisoner, scarcely moving at all, even when approached and touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-closed sleeping eyes. But at night, what a change! How alert, how wild, how active! He was like another bird, he darted about with wide, fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat.

I opened the window, and swiftly, but as silent as a shadow, he glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps ere this has revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or bluebird that first betrayed his hiding place. End of chapter 5