Page:Condor21(2).djvu/10

 56 THE CONDOR Vol. XXI ket; her own kitten was then taken home in the same manner. This annoying act of mine was repeated frequently in the presence of visitors to show to them the cat's apparent affection and greater care for the orphan. An acquaintance caused an article to appear in a local newspaper calling attention to "Bert Ingersoll's Zoo". Curiosity brought many people to see my squirrels and kittens feeding at the same "lunch counter". [y lovable old cat once surprised me by retrieving, uninjured, a small garter snake that had escaped to a nei'ghbor's garden while. being transferred to a new reptile cage. The rearing of some young screech owls, captured as they were about strong enough to leave a snug hollow in an elm, proved amusing in several ways. One, in reddish phase of plumage, was a favorite and entertained us by taking from the hand large angleworms as offered, swallowing them alive. Clos- ing beak and eyes, the bird would simulate sleep and remain motionless. In the course of forty or fifty seconds the struggling worms would slowly emerge rom between the mandibles, slip out an inch or two, and swing loosely around in space until feathers were touched'. Violent efforts to escape in their direc- tion always roused the owl to action. Reswallowing these squirming tidbits, she would assume her previous attitude and be ready for a repetition of the. performance. It was such a nauseating sight that one spectator said she could hardly keep her own mouth closed! Angleworms seeming to be a favor- ite food of this screech owl, it is reasouable to suppose that it was an enjoyable sensation to have its palate tickled by them. My adult screech owl would not eat raw or cooked vegetable' matter in any form.; but the two immature birds reared by me would eagerly swallow young leaves and tender shoots of certain plants. A preference was shown for those of the grapevine. Later, advanced growth making the grape unacceptable to hem, and having difficulty in finding a palatable suq)stitute that would be eaten from my hand, I placed an assortment of green stuff in their cage, that the kind needed might be selected during the night and eaten by them. As my pets gradually lost their craving for this line of food, and stopped eating it al- together after being in captivity a month or two, I am inclined to believe screech owls require a mixed diet of animal and vegetable matter during an early pe- riod of life. ' The reading of Samuels' "Birds of New England and Adjacent States", a treasured 1871 Christma gift, had much to do in awakening my interest in ornithology and oology. Starting a collection of bird skins with an albino robin, accidentally killed by coming in contact with a baseball, did not lead to the taking of albinos only. Birds' eggs were first taken without nests and kept, a pair of a kind, in a spool cabinet. I had never seen a well arranged or large collection of eggs. But observing, after a little field work, that eggs looked more attractive in original nests than in a sawdust-lined drawer or box, I decided that my collection should have one nest, with complete set of eggs displayed in it, of every obtainable species, and also a set of each species of eggs to be kept by itself. This resolution was made in 1875. In June of that year I collected a nest and four eggs of the Vesper Sparrow at Ithaca, New York. This initial set is still in my collection, and owing to painstaking care, this and all my earlier collected specimens are now in as fine a state of preser- vation as when first placed in my cabinets. My field work has mainly been carried on in twenty-four counties of Cali-