“No, the bird is represented in one of its peaceful moments; there is nothing to arouse it, nothing to attract its attention. It has withdrawn into itself and is thinking of the fine feast it had when it last went hunting. It is digesting that feast. But let a mouse come and scratch anywhere near, and the red owl immediately ruffles its forehead—the first sign of attention. It straightens up and spreads out its egrets—a sign of the closest possible attention. It has heard, it has understood. Off darts the bird and the mouse is caught. “The smaller rodents are its delight. It seasons them with beetles and June-bugs—especially the latter which are an aid to digestion. When larger game is lacking it contents itself with a frugal meal of insects, hoping to make up for it soon with a good dinner of meadow-mice. “Red owls are great travelers. They assemble in companies, sometimes to migrate for the winter and seek a warmer clime, sometimes to search out a district where there is plenty of game, when their present haunts no longer offer enough to suffice them. If field-mice are on the increase in some particular region and are ravaging the fields of grain and hay, the red owls hear of it, I don’t know how. They spread the glad tidings, all club together, and start for the lands where feasting awaits them. With such zeal do they apply themselves to the work of extermination that in a few weeks the fields are cleared of the infesting hordes. “Red owls nest in hollow trees and clefts in rocks. Their eggs, from two to four in a nest, are of a shiny white.” CHAPTER XVI OTHER OWLS “Owls not belonging to the horned class lack, of course, the egrets or plumicorns characteristic of the latter. The largest of the hornless owls is the howlet or tawny owl, which is about as large as one of our domestic hens. The predominating color of its plumage is grayish in the male and reddish in the female, a difference that sometimes causes them to be mistaken for separate species. On this background color is a sprinkling of light brown spots, running lengthwise of the body and less numerous on the breast and stomach than elsewhere. The wings are marked with several large, white, round spots. The head is very large and nearly round, the face sunken in the surrounding feathers and partly concealed by them. The eyes, likewise sunken, are brown and surrounded with small gray feathers.