no trouble for him to see which
way and where to go.

Just at dusk in the winter nights, I often hear his soft bur-r-r-r, very
pleasing and bell-like. What a furtive, woody sound it is in the winter
stillness, so unlike the harsh scream of the hawk. But all the ways
of the owl are ways of softness and duskiness. His wings are shod with
silence, his plumage is edged with down.

Another owl neighbor of mine, with whom I pass the time of day more
frequently than with the last, lives farther away. I pass his castle
every night on my way to the post-office, and in winter, if the hour
is late enough, am pretty sure to see him standing in his doorway,
surveying the passers-by and the landscape through narrow slits in
his eyes. For four successive winters now have I observed him. As the
twilight begins to deepen he rises out of his cavity in the apple-tree,
scarcely faster than the moon rises from behind the hill, and sits in
the opening, completely framed by its outlines of gray bark and dead
wood, and by his protective coloring virtually invisible to every eye
that does not know he is there. Probably my own is the only eye that has
ever penetrated his secret, and mine never would have done so had I not
chanced on one occasion to see him leave his retreat and make a
raid upon a shrike that was impaling a shrew-mouse upon a thorn in a
neighboring tree and which I was watching. Failing to get the mouse,
the owl returned swiftly to his cavity, and ever since, while going
that way, I have been on the lookout for him. Dozens of teams and
foot-passengers pass him late in the day, but he regards them not, nor
they him. When I come alone and pause to salute him, he opens his eyes a
little wider, and, appearing to recognize me, quickly shrinks and fades
into the background of his door in a very weird and curious manner. When
he is not at his outlook, or when he is, it requires the best powers
of the eye to decide the point, as the empty cavity itself is almost
an exact image of him. If the whole thing had been carefully studied
it could not have answered its purpose better. The owl stands quite
perpendicular, presenting a front of light mottled gray; the eyes are
closed to a mere slit, the ear-feathers depressed, the beak buried in
the plumage, and the whole attitude is one of silent, motionless waiting
and observation. If a mouse should be seen crossing the highway, or
scudding over any exposed part of the snowy surface in the twilig