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july, i9o6 [ THE BARN OWL AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE 85 or sat in a soured state of silence, but one eye was always open and watching every movement we made. We crept out one night and hid in a brush heap by the barn. It was not long before the scratching and soft hissing of the young owls told us their breakfast time had come. The curtain of the night had fallen. ?'he day creatures were at rest. Suddenly a shadow flared across the dim-lit sky; there was a soundless sweeping of wings as the shadow winnowed back again. The young owls, by some unmistakable perception, knew of the approach of food, for there was a sud- den outburst in the soap-box like the whistle of escaping steam. It was answered by an unearthly, rasping, witching screech. I thought of the time when we used to creep out in the dead of night and scare an old negro by dragging a chunk of resin along a cord attached to the top of an empty tin can. Again and again the shadow came and went. Then I crept into the barn, felt my way up and edged along the rafters to the hen-roosty old box. Sil- ently I waited and listened to a nasal concert that was as pleasing as a cageful of musi- - cal snakes. The nfinute food ? was brought I flashed a match and saw one of the lit- tle "monkey-faces" tearing the head from the body of a young gopher. The barn owl kills the largest gopher with ease and d? celerity, and with apparently little resistance on the part of the animal. With the sharp talons firmly fastened in the gopher's back and the wings spread, the owl will break the vertebrae of the animal's neck with a few hard blows of its beak. The head is most always devoured first, either PORTRAIT O? r I'l?,l?r-OROWbl .Al?lq OWl., ?.OOT because that is a favorite Cop_rriMhted O' H. T. I?ohlman and lVm. L. part or because the destruction of the head gives better assurance of the animal's death. The next time we climbed the cob-webbed rafters to photograph the young owls, I cautiously thrust in my hand to pull out the nearest nestling. In a twink- ling he fell flat on his back and clutched me with both claws. Of all the grips I ever felt, that was most like a needle-toothed steel trap. I felt the twinge of pain as the sharp talons sank ihto the flesh. I cringed and the grip tightened. The slightest movement was the signal for a tenser grasp. It was the clutch that fast- ens in the prey and never relaxes till the stillness of death follows. I hung to the