3 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



anything, no matter how hungry he may be. He eats dead birds, 

 mice, squirrels, fish, snakes, mussels, turtles, if opened, and butch- 

 er's scraps ; but he will make no effort to catch or kill a squirrel, 

 mouse, or snake, although shut up with them while hungry for a 

 day or more. In one instance of this kind he ate a squirrel which 

 he had allowed to live for twelve hours, as soon as it was killed 

 and given to him. I have seen him drink once, and only once. 

 If he bathes, it is a rare occurrence and done secretly. Early one 

 morning in August, 1891, I heard a splashing in the owl's water- 

 tank. It was about 3.30 a. m. Creeping to the cage, I peered in. 

 and saw Snowdon shaking himself, as though he had just finished 

 a bath. 



His method of eating is suggestive of a carrion-eater. The 

 barred owls are deliberate in their way of treating their food. 

 They search for and crush joints and finny projections. In a 

 frog they feel of every limb from end to end, and crunch away at 

 the joints until they are mellow. They generally pull out the 

 stiff wing and tail feathers, even in quite moderate-sized birds. 

 Small snakes they swallow squirming. Snowdon, on the other 

 hand, ignores live snakes, and his first act with dead food is to 

 swallow it whole if he can possibly distend his throat far enough 

 to let it pass. I have seen the head of a large rooster vanish down 

 his throat bill foremost without his making any effort to crush 

 it. Often a piece of food will stick in his throat and refuse to go 

 down, in spite of vigorous jerks, jumps, and convulsive swallow- 

 ing. It is then ejected and sometimes dropped altogether. With 

 a large piece of meat or fish his method is different. Standing 

 upon it, he snaps at it viciously and tears off small bits, in eating 

 which he makes a smacking noise. Engaged in this way he is a 

 disgusting spectacle. His head is poked forward, and the feathers 

 upon it seem flattened. The hairy feathers around his beak are 

 drawn back, and his red mouth is open much of the time. If dis- 

 turbed while eating, he makes his shrill and extremely piercing 

 ory. He is perfectly willing to be fed by hand, snapping at and 

 bolting morsels of liver as fast as they are passed to him. He 

 sometimes eats enormous quantities of food in a short time. He 

 ate the whole of a full-grown bittern in twenty-four hours, and 

 on another occasion a cooper's hawk placed before him at night 

 had only one leg and a few feathers remaining in the morning. 

 Like other owls, he ejects hair and bone pellets from his mouth. 



The great-horned owl is not so ready to be fed. He prefers to 

 eat while alone. Mice, however, are too attractive to be refused, 

 and whenever held before him are slowly and quietly taken and 

 swallowed. Other food he usually pretends not to see until I have 

 left him. He seems ready to eat anything that the other owls like. 

 I know that he has bathed at least once this winter, and, judging 



