The large Canada owl will be found hatching or sitting in July. This is the owl which is so very white during the winter months, but, like the rabbit, changes his coat during the summer, when he becomes somewhat gray or brown. Of all our birds of prey, the owl is perhaps the most predatory in his persistence in waylaying about a farmer’s poultry yard, and it is no trouble at all for him nor any tax upon his powers to carry off an ordinary hen. Recently I happened to walk along the bank of a stream partly wooded, and in the top of a cedar stump, about ten feet from the ground, I found this great bird’s nest. Three owlets were there, with their great staring eyes nearly as large as those of the parent bird’s, while their bodies were covered with down so thick and so long that it seemed almost like a coat of wool. Perhaps the best way to describe them would be to say they were just fuzzy. Around the sides of their nest, which was made of small sticks, were some small bones, apparently those of mice and rats, but not of fowls, so far as I could see. Even if the owl does destroy some fowls, I could not find it in my heart to hurt the fuzzy little owlets, and I let them remain, fully believing that their parent entirely squares the account by the great quantity of mice and rats which he is daily securing from our fields. Before leaving the owl’s nest I want to say that one day, just as winter set in, an immense number of crows--I should say 3,000 at least--were congregated about the tops of some pine trees not far from my residence--trees about forty feet high. Furiously and persistently did those crows caw, and fly, and hop about, producing such a din as to attract persons a mile away during a still day. The cawing kept up so long that I seized my breech-loader and resolved to investigate the cause of the crows’ congress, as such gatherings are usually called. Cautiously I approached the feathered multitude, wondering what could possibly be up, but no such caution was at all needed, for they heeded me not. Backwards and forwards the more adventurous ones apparently darted into the top of one particular pine, giving at the, same time a tremendous yell. Following with my eye their line of flight, I discovered an enormous white owl perched upon a limb, the object of attack of the more desperate of the whole 3,000 or so crows thus assembled. For many minutes I quietly witnessed this unequal contest, in my curiosity actually forgetting to fire, and found that the old owl was a match, as he sat upon the limb, for them all. Sometimes the crows will gather just the same in congress about a black squirrel, in the top of some high forest tree, but I have yet to learn that they ever succeed in inflicting any punishment upon either owl or squirrel.