ginianus_, or Great
Horned Owl of the books. But his Indian name is best. Almost any night
in autumn, if you leave the town and go out towards the big woods, you
can hear him calling it, _Koo-koo-skoos, koooo, kooo_, down in the
swamp.

Kookooskoos is always catching the wrong rat. The reason is that he is
a great hunter, and thinks that every furry thing which moves must be
game; and so he is like the fool sportsman who shoots at a sound, or a
motion in the bushes, before finding out what makes it. Sometimes the
rat turns out to be a skunk, or a weasel; sometimes your pet cat; and,
once in a lifetime, it is your own fur cap, or even your head; and
then you feel the weight and the edge of Kookooskoos' claws. But he
never learns wisdom by mistakes; for, spite of his grave appearance,
he is excitable as a Frenchman; and so, whenever anything stirs in the
bushes and a bit of fur appears, he cries out to himself, _A rat,
Kookoo! a rabbit!_ and swoops on the instant.

Rats and rabbits are his favorite food, by the way, and he never lets
a chance go by of taking them into camp. I think I never climbed to
his nest without finding plenty of the fur of both animals to tell of
his skill in hunting.

One evening in the twilight, as I came home from hunting in the big
woods, I heard the sound of deer feeding just ahead. I stole forward
to the edge of a thicket and stood there motionless, looking and
listening intently. My cap was in my pocket, and only my head appeared
above the low firs that sheltered me. Suddenly, without noise or
warning of any kind, I received a sharp blow on the head from behind,
as if some one had struck me with a thorny stick. I turned quickly,
surprised and a good bit startled; for I thought myself utterly alone
in the woods--and I was. There was nobody there. Not a sound, not a
motion broke the twilight stillness. Something trickled on my neck; I
put up my hand, to find my hair already wet with blood. More startled
than ever, I sprang through the thicket, looking, listening everywhere
for sight or sound of my enemy. Still no creature bigger than a wood
mouse; no movement save that of nodding fir tips; no sound but the
thumping of my own heart, and, far behind me, a sudden rush and a bump
or two as the frightened deer broke away; then perfect stillness
again, as if nothing had ever lived in the thickets.

I was little more than a boy; and I went home that night more puzzled
and more frightened than I h