File:Bird legend and life (1908) (14568725468).jpg

Identifier: birdlegendlife00walk (find matches)
Title: Bird legend and life
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Walker, Margaret Coulson
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, The Baker & Taylor Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
by the growing nestlings, and, as they becom eolder, bones and feathers are just as necessary a part of it as the flesh, for it has been proven that owls cannot live on boneless meat. Even though food should prove scarce, maternal anxiety and the infant plaints of her babes take the owl home every so often through the night that the safety of her brood may be assured. While parental devotion is at its height, the cares of motherhood are materially lightened by the unfailing fidelity of her mate, who does not spend all his time insapiently staring at the moon, as the poets would have us believe. The young family makes just as heavy a draft on his time as on hers. This division of labor is well, for one of them could hardly supply the wants of such a ravenous group for such an extended period as the little ones remain in the nest nine or ten weeks; at least, it is that long before they leave the branches immediately surrounding their home. The rising sun causes the owl, with feathers bedraggled 18
Text Appearing After Image:
Photograph by A. Hyatt Verrill YOUNG ACADIAN OWL; One of the little ones, dozing on a limb, will look like nothing more than a sleepy small boy in his nighties. OWL LIFE and wet with dew, to seek shelter for the day on a limb close to the bole of some dense tree, where, after making an indifferent toilet, she sits with elongated body and close-drawnfeathers, looking quite like the weather-worn bark. Thus she escapes the notice of the feathered hordes who might attack her. After a close search here is where we are most likely to find her, with tail close pressed to the limb in the shrinking but vertical attitude common to all owls, faithfully standing guard over the nest. If we are fortunate enough to find in the evergreens the different members of an Acadian family in a secluded spot favorable to thought, the mother, with wide open eyes, will be the picture of wisdom and a fit companion for Minerva or Pallas Athene, while one of the little ones, dozing on a nearby limb, will look like nothing m

Note About Images