Presently the owl remarked, reflectively: "It seems strange that every one should hate us as they do. If I fly near the house in the evening, the farmer shouts, 'Shoot the owl! he is after the chickens.' If I sit on a tree during the day, all the birds find me, and bother me half to death. And some naturalist comes along and tries to take my children away."
"I don't see how they can get them at the bottom of that hole," said Mr. Thompson.
"Well, you see, everybody don't know how," replied the owl, "but Frank Buckland, the great English naturalist, gives the best way. You see, our two weapons of defense are our beaks and our claws, so if we can't get the better of an enemy with our beaks we turn over on our backs and clutch it in our claws, and we don't let go in a hurry either. So you see this Buckland lets down a ball of worsted into the nest, and keeps it bobbing up and down till we catch hold of it; then he draws it up."
"That makes me think," said Mr. Thompson, aloud, forgetting the presence of the owl, "that I wanted one of the young ones to take to Miss—"
"To who?" interrupted the owl, angrily.
"To Miss—"
"To who-o-o-o?"
"To Miss Angelina," answered Mr. Thompson.
The owl puffed his feathers angrily, and the movement so disconcerted Mr. Thompson that he lost his balance and fell from the branch. As he picked himself up, the owl uttered a derisive "To who," and flew away. It was quite late, and as Mr. Thompson walked slowly home, he murmured, "I'll try that ball and string method of catching owls to-morrow, but if they do more good than harm it seems a shame to disturb them, though I do want to give one to—"
"To who?" came the voice of the owl from the depths of the woods.