It touched me at the time that the little
ones rested on a feather bed pulled from the mother bird's own breast.
I brushed the down with my fingers. Instantly two heads came up, fuzzy
gray heads, with black pointed beaks, and beautiful hazel eyes, and a
funny long pin-feather over each ear, which made them look like little
wise old clerks just waked up. When I touched them again they
staggered up and opened their mouths,--enormous mouths for such little
fellows; then, seeing that I was an intruder, they tried to bristle
their few pin-feathers and snap their beaks.
They were fat as two aldermen; and no wonder. Placed around the edge
of the big nest were a red squirrel, a rat, a chicken, a few frogs'
legs, and a rabbit. Fine fare that, at eighty feet from the ground.
Kookooskoos had had good hunting. All the game was partly eaten,
showing I had disturbed their dinner; and only the hinder parts were
left, showing that owls like the head and brains best. I left them
undisturbed and came away; for I wanted to watch the young grow--which
they did marvelously, and were presently learning to hoot.
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