else."

"Short and to the point! Acquitted!" said the Eagle. "Snowy Owl, it is
your turn." This beautiful white Owl, marked here and there with black
bars and spots, had a smooth round head like a snowball, great yellow
eyes, and thickly feathered feet; his bill and claws were black, but you
could hardly see them for the thickness of the feathers in which they
were muffled up. He winked with each eye, clicked Iris bill once or
twice, and thus began:

[Illustration: Snowy Owl.]

"I'm a very good-looking bird, as you see--fatally beautiful, in fact;
for House People shoot me, not on account of my sins, but because I can
be stuffed and sold for an ornament. I do not stay long enough in the
parts of the country where they live, to do much harm, even were I a
wicked Owl. My home is in Arctic regions, where my feather-lined nest
rests on the ground, and even in winter I come into the United States
only when driven by snowstorms from the North.

"At home I live chiefly on lemmings, which are a sort of clumsy,
short-tailed field-mice, not good for anything but to be eaten. When I
go visiting I may take a little feathered game, but oftener I live on my
favorite mice, or go a-fishing in creeks that are not frozen; for I am a
day Owl, and can see quite well in the sunlight. You never see me except
in winter, for I am a thing of cold and snow, whose acquaintance you can
seldom cultivate; but if you knew me well you would find me gentle,
kind, and willing to be friends with you--if you do not believe me, ask
the Wise Men."

"Acquitted! You see we are proving our innocence," said the Eagle
proudly. But he hesitated a moment before calling upon the Great Horned
Owl, as if he himself doubted the honesty of this savage bird.

He was large, nearly two feet high, with very long ear-tufts and great
staring yellow eyes in the middle of his large flat face. He was mottled
on the back and wings with buff and black, had on a white cravat, and
his vest was barred with black, white, and buff; his sharp black talons
were almost hidden by feathers, but not so much so as the Snowy Owl's.

[Illustration: Great Horned Owl]

"None of you like me because you are afraid of me, and so you would
rather condemn me than not," began the Horned Owl fiercely. "But I am
not afraid of anything or anybody. I am a liberal parent and heap my
nest up with food, like all the Owl and Hawk Brotherhood. If I wish a
Hen or a Goose or a Turkey I take it, though I