s
surprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones that were
placed in a convenient place under the shed to be pounded up for the
hens. In going out to the barn I often disturbed him making a meal off
the bits of meat that still adhered to them.

"Look intently enough at anything," said a poet to me one day, "and you
will see something that would otherwise escape you." I thought of the
remark as I sat on a stump in an opening of the woods one spring day. I
saw a small hawk approaching; he flew to a tall tulip-tree, and
alighted on a large limb near the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Then
the bird disclosed a trait that was new to me: he hopped along the limb
to a small cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled
out some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken of
it for some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and flew
away. I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly down as the
hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers of a sparrow
here and there clinging to the bushes beneath the tree. The hawk,
then,--commonly called the chicken hawk,--is as provident as a mouse or
a squirrel, and lays by a store against a time of need, but I should
not have discovered the fact had I not held my eye on him.

An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotion
among them. In May or June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay is
a silent bird; he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as
silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very
anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none so
quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning a
troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow
trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is
a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they
did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect the
bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peeping into
holes and crannies both spring and fall. Some unsuspecting bird had
probably entered the cavity prospecting for a place for next year's
nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass a cold night, and then
had rushed out with important news. A boy who should unwittingly
venture into a bear's den when Bruin was at home could not be more
astonished and alarmed than a bluebird would be on finding itself