he old Owl sat on them ever so tight and would hardly budge to let
the miller see them. We didn't stay long, for the Owl was a savage big
thing, nearly two feet high, with yellow eyes and long feathers sticking
up on its head like horns."

"A Great Horned Owl," said the Doctor. "I only wonder that it let the
miller go near it at all; they are generally very wild and fierce."

"This one was sort of friends with the lumbermen," continued Rap, "for
they used to hang lumps of raw meat on the bushes for it, and they said
it kept the rats and mice away from the camp and was good company for
them. It frightened me when I heard it first; it gave an awful scream,
like a hurt person. After a while another one began to bark like a dog
with a cold, just like this--'who-o-o-o--hoo--hoo--hoo.' And, Doctor,
one of the lumbermen told me that with Owls and Hawks the female is
mostly bigger than the male. Do you think that is so? Because with
singing birds the male is the largest."

"Among cannibal birds the female is usually the largest," answered the
Doctor, who was pleased to see that Rap so often had a "because" for his
questions. "These birds do a great deal of fighting, both in catching
their living prey and holding their own against enemies; and as the
female stays most at home, being the chief protector of the nest, she
needs more strength."

"Some singing birds are real plucky too," said Rap. "That same year I
found a Robin's nest in April, when the water-pail by the well froze
every night, and a Woodcock's nest in the brushwood. It's hard to see a
Woodcock on the nest, they look so like dead leaves. It snowed a little
that afternoon, and the poor bird's back was all white, but there she
sat. It made me feel so sorry, and I was so afraid she might freeze,
that I made a little roof over her of hemlock branches. And she liked
that and didn't move at all; so then I wiped the snow off her back, and
she seemed real comfortable. I used to go back every day after that to
see her; we grew to be quite friends before the four eggs hatched, and
I've seen them do queer little tricks; but I never told anybody where
she lived, though, because lots of people don't seem to understand
anything about birds but shooting or teasing them."

"Some day you shall tell us about what the Woodcock did, my lad. You
must tell us a great many stories, for you know what you have seen
yourself. That is the best knowledge of all, and it will encourage Nat