and Mrs. Bird kindly take it upon themselves to raise the "baby bird" inside. But when the egg hatches, the Birds are in for a big surprise--"Junior" is the oddest-looking baby bird they've ever seen--with big, long jaws full of teeth and an appetite to match. In fact, he looks more like a baby alligator than a baby bird! Nevertheless, the devoted Birds run themselves ragged feeding Junior until he gets so big, he must leave the nest or it will collapse underneath him. But how can Junior fly without wings? To the delight of the Birds--and readers!--the dilemma is solved when Junior takes off from a branch overlooking a pond.

    I, more careful, attribute to him the keenest appetite to find things out.” The same might be said of Service himself. His Owl is less the result of wisdom than of a keen if bemused curiosity. No man can know all about a bird, especially a screech owl who possesses, as the book jacket puts it, the proportions of a beer can and the personality of a bank president. But a year of open-minded daily contact with such a creature is bound to lead to something, and in this case it has led to one of the most elegant and perceptive pieces of nature writing since T. H. White fell in with a goshawk.