140 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



have been many. Will people ever get over the 

 kill-for-fun habit, or must they be wholly disarmed? 



The owls of the country are few in number, but all 

 useful in habits. A few great horned owls, bam oivls, 

 screech owls, and the funny little burrowing owls are 

 found in the valley and cave country, and the spotted 

 owls up in the Guadalupe Mountains. Of these the 

 little round headed burrowing owl or prairie-dog owl is 

 the most frequently seen, because he sits on a mound by 

 a prairie-dog or badger hole in the daytime, and bows 

 and bobs to passers-by, or flies away to another burrow, 

 where perhaps he has a mate and nest of eggs or young 

 deep underground in a hole deserted by its original 

 owner. If so, tails and feet of kangaroo rats, bones of 

 mice, and legs and shells of a great variety of insects, 

 will be seen scattered about on the ground from the 

 disgorged and disintegrated pellets. Rarely a bird 

 feather is found, for these little owls live almost ex- 

 clusively on insects and small rodents. They often 

 live at long distances from water, and probably can get 

 along without other moisture than what is obtained 

 from their food. 



Great horned owls live in the Carlsbad Cave, under 

 the huge arch that spans the doorway, where for untold 

 generations their nests have occupied the high niches 

 in the rocky walls, and owlets have been safe from 

 storms and most of their enemies. Even the savage 

 red men who once occupied the cave with them were 

 loath to point an arrow at the sacred birds of the night, 

 but in recent years civilized visitors, to whom nothing 

 is sacred, have shot some and driven others away to nest 



