murderer was the owl. All around were signs of the struggle, but
the fell destroyer was too strong. The poor crow had been dragged
from his perch at night, when the darkness bad put him at a
hopeless disadvantage.

I turned over the remains, and by chance unburied the head--then
started with an exclamation of sorrow. Alas! It was the head of old
Silverspot. His long life of usefulness to his tribe was over--slain at
last by the owl that he had taught so many hundreds of young
crows to beware of.

The old nest on the Sugar Loaf is abandoned now. The crows still
come in spring-time to Castle Frank, but without their famous
leader their numbers are dwindling, and soon they will be seen no
more about the old pine-grove in which they and their forefathers
had lived and learned for ages.

The Story of a Cottontail Rabbit

RAGGYLUG, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. It
was given him from his torn and ragged ear, a life-mark that he got
in his first adventure. He lived with his mother in Olifant's Swamp,
where I made their acquaintance and gathered, in a hundred
different ways, the little bits of proof and scraps of truth that at
length enabled me to write this history.

Those who do not know the animals well may think I have
humanized them, but those who have lived so near them as to
know somewhat of their ways and their minds will riot think so.