ner, three toes forward and one back,
whereas the owl usually sets his foot with two toes forward and two
backward, as in the sketch. This, then, I felt sure was the work of an
owl. But which owl? There were two, maybe three kinds in that valley. I
wished to know exactly and, looking for further evidence, I found on a
sapling near by a big soft, downy, owlish feather (m) with three brown
bars across it; which told me plainly that a Barred Owl or Hoot Owl had
been there recently, and that he was almost certainly the killer of the
Cottontail.

This may sound like a story of Sherlock Holmes among the animals--a
flimsy tale of circumstantial evidence. But while I was making my notes,
what should come flying through the woods but the Owl himself, back to
make another meal, no doubt. He alighted on a branch just above my head,
barely ten feet up, and there gave me the best of proof, next to eye
witness of the deed, that all I had gathered from the tracks and signs
in the snow was quite true.

I had no camera in those days, but had my sketch book, and as he sat, I
made a drawing which hangs to-day among my pictures that are beyond
price.

Here, then, is a chapter of wild life which no man saw, which man could
not have seen, for the presence of a man would have prevented it. And
yet we know it was true, for it was written by the Rabbit himself.

If you have the seeing eye, you will be able to read many strange and
thrilling happenings written for you thus in the snow, the mud, and even
the sand and the dust.

TALE 57

The Singing Hawk

Listen, Guide and young folk, I want to add another bird to your list
to-day; another secret of the woods to your learning.

I want you to know the Singing Hawk. Our nature writers nearly always
make their hawks scream, but I want you to know a wonderful Hawk, right
in your own woods, that really and truly sings, and loves to do it.

It is a long time ago since I first met him. I was going past a little
ravine north of Toronto, on a bright warm mid-winter day, when a loud
call came ringing down the valley and the bird that made it, a large
hawk, appeared, sailing and singing, _kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-o, kee-o,
kee-ye-o, ky-ye-o, ky-oodle, ky-oodle, kee-o, kee-o_ and on; over and
over again, in a wild-wood tone that thrilled me. He sailed with set
wings to a near-by tree, and ceased not his stirring call; there was no
answer from the woods, but there was a vibrant response in my hear