OUR AMERICAN OWLS. 145 



from one side of the mouth. The indigested mass forms a roundish 

 ball or pellet in the stomach, which the bird vomits up. These pel- 

 lets or castings indicate what enormous feeders the owls are. One 

 which I took out of the stomach of a little screech-owl was as big as 

 a walnut, and made up of hair and bones, and had in it the skulls of 

 six mice ! 



"While adopting Dr. Coues's specific nomenclature, let us follow 

 John Cassin's distribution of these birds. To aid both memory and 

 judgment, the following scheme is offered : 



FAMILY. 



Strigidce. The Owls. 



SUB-FAMILIES. 



1. Striginoe. The Typical Owls. 



2. Bubonince. The Horned-Owls. 



3. Syrnince. The Gray Owls. 



4. AthenincB. The Bird-Owls. 



5. Nycteininm. The Day-Owls. 



1. Among the Striginm we find no large owls, but here are found 

 the typical birds of the family. Here is seen in its highest perfec- 

 tion of form that owlish peculiarity of the face known as the facial 

 disk; that circle of bristle-like, radiating feathers, which helps the 

 big round eyes to their cattish stare. Tiie eyes, however, of the birds 

 in this group, are not so large as are found in some species in the 

 other groups ; but the bills of the Striginm are somewhat longer. 

 Here we find the white or barn owl of the authors, which is in fact 

 the world's traditional owl. Its portrait is given in Fig. 1, which is 

 Strix flammea (Linn.), the barn-owl of Europe. This and the Ameri- 

 can barn-owl were long regarded as the same species ; but Cones 

 considers it a geographical variety, and, restoring Audubon's name, 

 makes a sub-species of it, thus: S. flammea, var, Americana (Fig. 2). 

 South of a certain latitude the bird is abundant on both sides of our 

 continent, chiefly near the sea. It is sometimes found in New York 

 and New Jersey, where it breeds in trees with the barest apology 

 for a nest, as the eggs are laid upon the debris or cast-up pellets of 

 the bird, which crumble and make a softish but filthy mess. Dr. 

 Newberry states that he saw this bird occupying holes in the perpen- 

 dicular cliffs on the shores of San Pablo Bay. Wood says the Euro- 

 pean barn-owl lives in trees and crevices of old buildings, laying its 

 white, rough-surfaced eggs upon a soft layer of its own castings. So 

 intensely pungent is the odor of the nest that it is with difficulty the 

 hand can be washed free of it after meddling with the eggs. The 

 young are described as curious little puffs of white down. The Eu- 

 ropean species is often found feeding a brood of young, while it is 

 hatching another set of eggs. The bird is often tamed, and sometimes 



VOL. XI. 10 



