“The name howlet is connected in its derivation with the word howl, and the bird called by that name is indeed remarkable for its cry, not unlike a wolf’s howl. When at the close of a somber winter day the wind whips the snow and moans in the trees, one may often hear a frightful cry, prolonged and mournful, rising from the dark depths of the forest—hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo. Then in the lonely cottage the frightened mother makes the sign of the cross, while her little ones press close to her, crying, and saying, ‘The wolves are coming.’ Don’t be uneasy, good people; it is not a wolf, it is an owl hoo-hooing, sounding its war-cry from the top of some hollow oak and getting ready for its nightly rounds. “In summer-time the howlet lives in the woods. It hunts by preference field-mice and meadow-mice, which it swallows whole, afterward throwing up the skin and bones rolled into a ball. The little birds that worry it so unmercifully in the daytime, whenever they get a chance to come upon it unawares in the sunlight, are not safe from its beak in the hours of darkness if the night-bird can pounce upon them after first frightening them with its terrible hoo-hoo. Keep as still as mice in your hiding-places, you finches and redbreasts and tomtits, and don’t betray yourselves by giving voice to your alarm. Let the owl hoo-hoo as much as it pleases. If you make a sound you are lost. “If the fields prove disappointing as a hunting-ground, the owl makes bold to approach dwelling-houses and finds its way into barns, there to play the part of cat and thus make good the title of ‘hooting cat’ which has been given it. For patience and skill in catching rats and mice it rivals Raminagrobis [4] himself. It is a guest to be treated with respect when hunger compels it to visit our granaries. After completing its nightly rounds it returns to the woods early in the morning, hides in the densest thickets or in the trees having the most abundant foliage, and there passes the day silent and motionless. In winter its home is always in the hollow of some old tree trunk. It lays its eggs in the abandoned nests of magpies, crows, buzzards, and kestrels; and these eggs, of a dingy gray color, are about as large as a pullet’s, but nearly round.