I have been puzzled, at times, to interpret the chirps and twitters of excited birds, and this irate little owl cried “Get out!” as plainly as man could speak it, and I got out. In all works treating of the intelligence of animals there is much said of the mental status of parrots, and little or nothing of the mother-wit of owls. Why this oversight is a mystery, unless it arises from the fact that “from the nocturnal preferences of most owls their habits are very slightly known, and many interesting facts are doubtless to be discovered in this direction. More often heard than seen, even their notes are only imperfectly known as yet.” Notwithstanding this, owls are well known in a general way—better known, indeed, than any other family of birds. Their appearance is striking, their expression intelligent, and that they were selected, in ancient and more poetical times, as the emblem of wisdom, is not to be wondered at. The bird of Minerva does not belie its looks. To speak of an owl’s wisdom in a Pickwickian sense, is to publish one’s own ignorance. I would that I might venture to give in merited detail an account of the wise doings, if not sayings, of little red owls that I have held captives for months. And, better yet, narrate the summer histories of owls at freedom that nested in the old orchard. Or write of the cunning ways of the handsome barn-owls, those beautiful cosmopolite birds, that made their home in a hollow oak upon an upland field. To do this would be to place our common owls where, in the scale of intelligence, they rightfully belong. Of all our birds, they are the least governed by mere impulse, and pass their days, as it has appeared to me, in a most methodical and reasonable manner. It has been admitted by many a traveler that to shoot a monkey was too like murder; they could not do it. Would that every farmer in the land had the same feeling with reference to the owls; for the same reason holds good, only to a less extent.