. Bird legend and life . ice, bats and moles, beetles andcrickets, and other small night prowlers who fare forth at thattime to seek their food. To them her supernatural, startlingcry is a portent of woe, a certain harbinger of approachingdeath—a death that must occur that the owl and her familymay live, for it is on these small creatures that she feeds and itis these that she carries to her young. In the early twilight, the hour when moths fly hum-ming, the owl and her mate leave the woodland retreat wherethey have spent the day in slothful slumber and go forthinto more open places, each seek
. Bird legend and life . ice, bats and moles, beetles andcrickets, and other small night prowlers who fare forth at thattime to seek their food. To them her supernatural, startlingcry is a portent of woe, a certain harbinger of approachingdeath—a death that must occur that the owl and her familymay live, for it is on these small creatures that she feeds and itis these that she carries to her young. In the early twilight, the hour when moths fly hum-ming, the owl and her mate leave the woodland retreat wherethey have spent the day in slothful slumber and go forthinto more open places, each seeking some solitary post ofvantage where she perches to watch for tiny field mice whomay be walking abroad in the twilight in quest of succulentroots and grasses; or for unwary young rabbits who havecome out to nibble the plantains; or possibly a toad whomay be dampening his warty back in the dewy herbage. As one of these approaches, silently sits the owl, ap-parently dozing, but really with every sense alert, till the 6. Photograph by A. Hyatt Verrill SCREECH OWL On seeing her sitting close to the hole of a tree where, withher protective coloration, she might easily be mistaken for aknot, we readily recognize the flattened face of the erstwhilemaiden, with its close-pressed nose and affrighted eyes. OWL LIFE faint sound of parted grasses, or a barely perceptible stir ofleaves below, causes her, after a first quiver of excitement,to drop seemingly without motion upon her quarry, when, asit is tightly clasped in her claws, her sharp talons pierce itsvitals, causing instant death. Her smaller prey she carries to her perch, where, aftera moment, it is tossed up with her beak and caught in itsdescent and swallowed whole. Larger animals, such asyoung squirrels, chipmunks and gophers, are dismemberedand swallowed piecemeal. After a time the indigestible por-tions of all food are ejected in the form of compact pelletsor owl balls. Sometimes as many as a bushel of these arefound in and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidbirdlege, booksubjectbirds
