The other day,
passing by a ledge, near the top of a mountain in a singularly
desolate locality, my eye rested upon one of these structures, looking
precisely as if it grew there, so in keeping was it with the mossy
character of the rock, and I have had a growing affection for the bird
ever since. The rock seemed to love the nest and claim it as its own.
I said, what a lesson in architecture is here! Here is a house that
was built, but with such loving care and such beautiful adaptation of
the means to the end, that it looks like a product of nature. The same
wise economy is noticeable in the nests of all birds. No bird could
paint its house white or red, or add aught for show.
At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come
suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together
upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause
within four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eye
lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly
upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me,
but every head turned squarely in my direction.
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