He looked at Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, at their hooked bills and great
claws, and decided that he would take a stout stick along with
him. He had no desire to feel these great claws. When he had found a
stick to suit him, he began to climb the tree. Hooty and Mrs. Hooty
snapped their bills and hissed fiercely. They drew nearer. Farmer
Brown's boy kept a watchful eye on them. They looked so big and
fierce that he was almost tempted to give up and leave them in
peace. But he just had to find out if there was anything in that
nest, so he kept on. As he drew near it, Mrs. Hooty swooped very
near to him, and the snap of her bill made an ugly sound. He held
his stick ready to strike and kept on.

The nest was simply a great platform of sticks. When Farmer Brown's
boy reached it, he found that he could not get where he could look
into it, so he reached over and felt inside. Almost at once his
fingers touched something that made him tingle all over. It was an
egg, a great big egg! There was no doubt about it. It was just as
hard for him to believe as it had been for Blacky the Crow to
believe, when he first saw those eggs. Farmer Brown's boy's fingers
closed over that egg and took it out of the nest. Mrs. Hooty swooped
very close, and Farmer Brown's boy nearly dropped the egg as he
struck at her with his stick. Then Mrs. Hooty and Hooty seemed to
lose courage and withdrew to a tree near by, where they snapped
their bills and hissed.

Then Farmer Brown's boy looked at the prize in his hand. It was a
big, dirty-white egg. His eyes shone. What a splendid prize to add
to his collection of birds' eggs! It was the first egg of the Great
Horned Owl, the largest of all Owls, that he ever had seen.