as for next-door
neighbour a sad old reprobate--Cocky, the big Triton cockatoo--who
abuses him horribly. The fact is, they both occupy a recess which once
Cocky had all to himself, and now Cocky bullies the intruder up hill and
down dale; although little Scops would gladly go somewhere else if he
could, and takes no notice of Cocky's uncivil bawlings further than to
lift his near wing apprehensively at each outburst. He and I have not
been able to improve our acquaintance greatly, partly because he is out
of reach, and partly because Cocky's conversation occupies most of his
time.

[Illustration: WHAT!]

[Illustration: WELL--]

[Illustration: DID YOU EVER!]

[Illustration: OF ALL THE--!]

The Zoo owls are a lamentably scattered family. Another Scops owl, with
one eye, lives in the eastern aviary, in Church's care. He is a
charming, furious little ruffian (I am speaking of the owl, and not of
Church), and perfectly ready to peck any living thing, quite
irrespective of size. Where he lost his eye is a story of his own, for
he was first met with but one. He sits on his perch with a furious cock
of the ears--which are not ears at all, but feathers--with the aspect of
being permanently prepared to repel boarders; and the only thing that
could possibly add to his fierceness of appearance would be a patch over
the sight of the demolished eye; a little present I would gladly make
myself, if he would let me.

[Illustration: THE SCOWLING SCOPS.]

He lives just underneath a much less savage little Naked-foot Owl, who
doesn't resent your existence with his beak, but gazes at you with a
most extreme air of shocked surprise. He doesn't attack you bodily for
standing on this earth on your own feet--he is too much grieved and
scandalized. He looks at you as a teetotal lady of the Anti-Gambling
League would look at her nephew if he offered to toss her for whiskies.
He follows you with his glare of outraged propriety till you shrink
behind Church and sneak away, with an indescribable feeling of personal
depravity previously unknown. Why should this pharisaical little bird
make one feel a criminal? As a matter of fact, he is nothing but a
raffish fly-by-night himself; and his pious horror is assumed, I
believe, as much to keep his eyes wide open and him awake as to impose
on one.

The owls' cages proper are away behind the llamas' house, and here you
may study owl nature in plenty; and you may observe the owls, like
people sit