Publicly and privately has this query been put to us--Is it unusual to hear a pigeon cooing at midnight, and the owl hooting in bright noonday? We answer very unhesitatingly that it is unusual, so unusual in the case of the owl at least, that in a quarter of a century's familiar and friendly intercourse with our wild-birds under all possible circumstances, we have never heard an owl hoot except "darkling," as Milton has it, that is, from out the darkness or sombre shade. Even at night, if the moon is shining bright, it never hoots from a spot on which the moonbeams fall in full flood; it selects the deepest shadow even in faint moonlight when uttering its eerie notes. It will hoot in twilight, and it will hoot when the heavens are bright ablaze with the most brilliant coruscations of the aurora, but never, so far as our experience has extended, does it hoot in honest daylight or even in moonlight, except when, as we have said, it is itself in deep shade. We have kept pets of all our native species of owls, and most interesting pets they make, and though, when angry or in any way out of sorts, it will utter a ready hiss, ending in a curious rasping guttural, we have never known it to hoot except in the darkness of night, and, more rarely, in the dim, uncertain light of evening or morning twilight. The cooing of a pigeon at midnight, while it may be said to be unusual, is yet a thing that, under certain circumstances, may be heard at any time. Many birds, captives in cage or aviary, frequently sing short and incomplete strophes of their special song in the warm stillness of summer nights, evidently in their dreams. Others, in their natural state of freedom, about the time of the longest day, when there is hardly any night in our latitudes, may be heard singing, generally unconnectedly, and in a faint, uncertain key. The pigeon will coo at any time when brooding, if rudely disturbed in any way, just as a brooding hen will purr and scold if you annoy her or her nest at any hour of the day or night. The cooing of a pigeon, therefore, at midnight is nothing very wonderful. The hooting of an owl at noonday, however, is surprising, and a thing which, although we live in a district where owls are plentiful, is altogether unknown in our experience.