STRIGID^E. ATHENE HYPUGCEA. 75 



ATIIENIN^E. 



ATHENE HYPUG(EA. 



Slrix cunicularia, SAY, Long's Expedition, I, 1819, 200. 



" BONAP. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 68. 



" " NUTTALL, Manual, I, 1832, 118. 



" " AUD. Orn. Biog. V, 1835, 264, pi. ccccxxxii, fig. 1. 



Strix hypugaa, BONAP. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 72. 

 Athene cunicularia, BONAP. Geog. and Comp. List, 1838, p. 6. 

 Surnia cunicularia, AUD. Syn. 1839, p. 23. 



" " " Birds of Am. I, 1840, 119, pi. xxi. ? 



Athene socialis, GAMBEL, Proc. Acad. Phil. Ill, 1852, 47. 

 Athene hypugcea, CASSIN, Syn. N. A. Birds (Illust. Birds of Cal.), 1854, p. 188. 



VULG. The Burrowing Owl. 



THE Burrowing Owl of North America has been ascertained to be a distinct spe- 

 cies from the Athene cunicularia of South America, with which it was confounded 

 by Audubon, and, since the publication of his Ornithology, by other writers. The 

 cunicularia closely resembles the Northern species, as well as several other South 

 American varieties, from which, however, it is specifically different. In Western 

 North America, especially in Oregon and California, as well as in Nebraska, Kan- 

 sas, Arkansas, Utah, Texas, and New Mexico, this Owl is very abundant in certain 

 localities, Avhere the birds live together in large communities, and differ from most 

 members of this family by living and breeding in burrows in the ground. As the 

 habits of this species in this respect are peculiar and interesting, and as I have never 

 had an opportunity to observe them in their native haunts, in order to present a 

 full account of their peculiarities I must avail myself of the observations of others. 



Mr. Thomas Say was the first of American naturalists to add this bird to our 

 fauna. He met with it in Colonel Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. He 

 encountered them in our trans-Mississippiau territories, where he described them as 

 residing exclusively in the villages of the Prairie Dog, whose excavations are so com- 

 modious as to make it unnecessary for the bird to dig for itself, which, however, it is 

 able to do when occasion requires. Mr. Say states that these villages are very nu- 

 merous, and variable in their extent, sometimes covering only a few acres, and at 

 others spreading over the surface of the country for miles together. They are com- 

 posed of slightly elevated mounds, having the form of a truncated cone, about two 

 feet in width at base, and seldom rising as high as eighteen inches above the sur- 

 face. The entrance is at the top or on the side. From the entrance the passage 

 descends vertically one or two feet, and thence it continues obliquely downward 

 until it terminates in the snug apartment where the Marmot enjoys its winter's sleep, 

 and where it and the Owl are common, but unfriendly occupants. 



Dr. Townsend states that in the plains near the Columbia River this Owl resorts 

 to the forsaken burrows of the marmots and the badgers, but never lives on terms 

 of intimacy with either. The nest he describes as of fine grass, and placed at the 



