henever I
took my eyes from him a moment, it was difficult to find him again, so
perfectly did his plumage blend with the white ice upon which he stood
motionless.

But he was not after the coots. I saw him lean forward suddenly and
plunge a foot into the water. Then, when he hopped back from the edge,
and appeared to be eating something, it dawned upon me that he was
fishing--and fishing like a true sportsman, out on the ice alone, with
only his own skill to depend upon. In a few minutes he struck again,
and this time rose with a fine fish, which he carried to the shore to
devour at leisure.

For a long time that fish was to me the most puzzling thing in the
whole incident; for at that season no fish are to be found, except in
deep water off shore. Some weeks later I learned that, just previous
to the incident, several fishermen's dories, with full fares, had been
upset on the east side of the island when trying to land through a
heavy surf. The dead fish had been carried around by the tides, and
the owl had been deceived into showing his method of fishing.
Undoubtedly, in his northern home, when the ice breaks up and the
salmon are running, he goes fishing from an ice cake as a regular
occupation.

The owl lit upon a knoll, not two hundred yards from where I sat
motionless, and gave me a good opportunity of watching him at his
meal. He treated the fish exactly as he would have treated a rat or
duck: stood on it with one foot, gripped the long claws of the other
through it, and tore it to pieces savagely, as one would a bit of
paper. The beak was not used, except to receive the pieces, which were
conveyed up to it by his foot, as a parrot eats. He devoured
everything--fins, tail, skin, head, and most of the bones, in great
hungry mouthfuls. Then he hopped to the top of the knoll, sat up
straight, puffed out his feathers to look big, and went to sleep. But
with the first slight movement I made to creep nearer, he was wide
awake and flew to a higher point. Such hearing is simply marvelous.

The stomach of an owl is peculiar, there being no intermediate crop,
as in other birds. Every part of his prey small enough (and the mouth
and throat of an owl are large out of all proportion) is greedily
swallowed. Long after the flesh is digested, feathers, fur, and bones
remain in the stomach, softened by acids, till everything is absorbed
that can afford nourishment, even to the quill shafts, and the ends
and marrow of bones