Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/644

624 original and amusing bird, without the slightest fear of any of us. He was christened Mephistopheles.

As he was learning to fly, it seemed advisable that he should be taught to come at our call to be fed; and accordingly one day, by way of experiment, I held out a piece of meat to him and squeaked like a mouse. There was a rush of downy pinions, and his talons were neatly arranged about my lips. He was evidently a good deal excited, but was careful not to hurt me any more than was absolutely necessary in order to secure the mouse which he fancied he had cornered in my mouth. I was just reckless enough to try it again on the following day as he perched on the low branch of an apple tree. His power of detecting the direction whence the sound came proved fully equal to the occasion, and the result was the same as in the first instance. The end of Mephisto was tragic in the extreme. He was sometimes fastened by a linen cord six or eight feet long and as large as a lead pencil, which when not in use was hung across the perch where he slept. Evidently he felt that the food furnished him was too effeminate, for the powerful stomachs of all birds of prey require a certain amount of such indigestible matter as hair, feathers, or bone to keep them in good condition. So one ill-fated night, in looking about for something that would answer that purpose, he unfortunately hit upon the' cord as a substitute, and proceeded to swallow one end of it. The first few feet must have fully satisfied his cravings, but there was the rest to be disposed of, and the most feasible method that presented itself naturally was to go on swallowing. The thing must have grown extremely dry and distasteful as inch after inch disappeared, still there was nothing for it but to go on, which he did. In the morning he was strangely silent and gloomy, with hardly a foot of cord protruding from his beak. Any attempt on our part to remove the cord proved not only fruitless but painful,