“Thus many of the birds that have escaped the farmers have been shot by collectors for the taxidermists or bird-store folk. Now the Wise Men are making laws which will, we hope, protect the useful birds of prey from this fate as they do the beautiful songsters; but it is not enough to make laws, it is the business of each one of us to see that they are carried out.
“I have a very amusing poem about an Owl in my scrap-book. When you have read it, you may guess, if you can, to which Owl the author refers.”
An Owl once lived in a hollow tree, And he was as wise as wise could be. The branch of learning he didn’t know Could scarce on the tree of knowledge grow; He knew the tree from branch to root, And an Owl like that can afford to hoot.
And he hooted until, alas! one day He chanced to hear in a casual way An insignificant little bird Make use of a term he had never heard. He was flying to bed in the dawning light, When he heard her singing with all her might: “Hurray! hurray! for the early worm!” “Dear me,” said the Owl, “what a singular term! I would look it up if it weren’t so late. I must rise at dusk to investigate. Early to bed and early to rise Makes an Owl healthy, and stealthy, and wise!”
So he slept like an honest Owl all day, And rose in the early twilight gray, And went to work in the dusky light To look for the early worm at night. He searched the country for miles around, But the early worm was not to be found; So he went to bed in the dawning light And looked for the “worm” again next night. And again and again, and again and again, He sought and he sought, but all in vain, Till he must have looked for a year and a day For the early worm in the twilight gray.
At last in despair he gave up the search, And was heard to remark as he sat on his perch, By the side of his nest in the hollow tree: “The thing is as plain as the night to me— Nothing can shake my conviction firm; There’s no such thing as the early worm.”
“I can’t tell exactly which it was,” said Tommy Todd, when he was through laughing; “but I know which it wasn’t—it wasn’t the Short-eared Owl, for he doesn’t get up to breakfast at night, and so if he had looked for the early worm he would have found him.”