Blacky the Crow had discovered Hooty the Owl dozing the bright day away in a thick hemlock-tree. Blacky knew that the bright light hurt Hooty's big eyes and half blinded him. This meant that he could have no end of fun teasing Hooty, and that Hooty would have to sit still and take it all, because he couldn't see well enough to fly away or to try to catch Blacky. Now if the day had been dark, as it sometimes is on cloudy days, or if the dusk of evening had been settling over the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, matters would have been very different. Blacky would have taken care, the very greatest care, not to let Hooty know that he was anywhere around. But as it was, here was a splendid chance to spoil Hooty's sleep and to see him grow very, very angry and do it without running any great risk.
"Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!" yelled Blacky at the top of his voice, and at once all his relatives came flocking over to join in the fun. Dear me, dear me, such a racket as there was then! They flew over his head, and they settled in the tree all around him, all yelling as hard as ever they could. Everybody within hearing knew what it meant, and everybody who dared to hurried over to watch the fun. Somehow most people seem to take pleasure in seeing some one else made uncomfortable, especially if it is some one of whom they stand in fear and who is for the time being helpless.
Most of the little meadow and forest people are very much afraid of Hooty the Owl as soon as it begins to grow dark, for that is when he can see best and does all his hunting. So, though it wasn't at all nice of them, they enjoyed seeing him tormented by Blacky and his relatives. But all the time they took the greatest care to keep out of sight themselves. Peter Rabbit was there. So was Jumper the Hare and Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel and Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Whitefoot the Wood Mouse and Striped Chipmunk and a lot more. Of course, Sammy Jay was there, but Sammy didn't try to keep out of sight. Oh, my, no! He joined right in with the Crows, calling Hooty all sorts of bad names and flying about just out of reach in the most impudent way. You see he knew just how helpless Hooty was.
Hooty was very, very angry. He hissed, and he snapped his bill, and he told his tormentors what he would do to them if he caught them after dark. And all the time he kept turning his head with its great, round, glaring, yellow eyes so as not to give his tormentors a chance to pull out any of his feathers, as the boldest of them tried to do. Now Hooty can turn his head as no one else can. He can turn it so that he looks straight back over his tail, so that his head looks as if it were put on the wrong way. Then he can snap it around in the other direction so quickly that you can hardly see him do it, and sometimes it seems as if he turned his head clear around.
That interested Peter Rabbit immensely. He couldn't think of anything else. He kept trying to do the same thing himself, but of course he couldn't. He could turn his head sideways, but that was all. He puzzled over it all the rest of the day, and that night, when his cousin, Jumper the Hare, called at the dear Old Briar-patch, the first thing he did was to ask a question.
"Cousin Jumper, do you know why it is that Hooty the Owl can turn his head way around, and nobody else can?"
"Of course I know," replied Jumper. "I thought everybody knew that. It's because his eyes are fixed in their sockets, and he can't turn them. So he turns his whole head in order to see in all directions. The rest of us can roll our eyes, but Hooty can't."
Peter scratched his long left ear with his long right hindfoot, a way he has when he is thinking or is puzzled. "That's funny," said he. "I wonder why his eyes are fixed."
"Because his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather rolled his eyes too much," replied Jumper, yawning. "He saw too much. It's a bad thing to see too much."
"Tell me about it. Please do, Cousin Jumper," begged Peter.