Animals: Owl

A motorcycle policeman of Westchester County, N. Y. was surprised last week to behold an elderly gentleman kneeling in a path through some woods near Scarsdale peering skywards through binoculars. The gentleman explained that he was P. L. Hudson of Brooklyn, ornithologist; that that bird up yonder was an arctic owl in full winter plumage; that winter would come soon now.

Man-Hole

A small rabbit which lives on the Westbury, L. I. estate of Mrs. John S. Phipps was sore disturbed one day last week. It became aware that it was being pursued by a pack of hounds. The hounds were the Aiken Beagles, a well-bred pack of 14 couple owned and hunted by Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock, famed horsewoman and mother of polo-playing Thomas Hitchcock Jr. Behind the hounds rode Mrs. Hitchcock and a granddaughter, eager for a morning’s sport. Presently, the Phipps rabbit became aware that it was no longer being pursued, that the hounds, far behind now, were barking at something else. Had the rabbit been sufficiently curious to double on its tracks and see what had caused the hounds to stop, it would have seen an extraordinary sight. The hounds were baying wildly around a thicket in a clump of woods behind the Phipps polo-field. Into the thicket, to find out what was there, went Mrs. Hitchcock’s whip. He caught sight of a man. saw the man disappear into a hole in the ground. Amazed, Mrs. Hitchcock ordered her whip to tell Mrs. Phipps’s superintendent; then set off, with her hounds, after the rabbit. Later, the hole into which the man had disappeared was found to be seven feet deep, furnished with a blanket, pots & pans, straw, a spade. He was persuaded to leave his burrow, where he had lived for almost a month, given a job as a gardener.