Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/623

Rh exalted feelings often manifest themselves in a peculiar way. Some receive their captor with open arms, some hug their bottles with approbative



grunts, while others lie on the ground, contemplating the sky in ecstatic silence.

Practical naturalists are generally the most successful trappers, for Lord Bacon is probably right, that observation is quite as prolific a mother of inventions as necessity. Only observation could have revealed the fact that little song-birds can be attracted by the sight of a bird of prey. A common chicken-hawk will serve that purpose. Fasten a tame hawk to a bush, and before the end of an hour all the finches and thrushes in the township will find it out and meet in general convention—an indignation-meeting, perhaps—though it is hard to understand what they can hope to accomplish against an enemy who could kill a score of them in ten minutes. But the experiment never fails: a hawk, an eagle, but especially a ferocious-looking old horn-owl, will allure birds at a time when they would disdain to neglect their domestic business for the sake of any tidbit. An owl-riot they seem to consider as a sort of public duty which must take precedence