BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 213 



bill and the eye; wings and tail with white spots on both webs, 

 the latter with from eight to ten pairs; bill light yellow; iris 

 yellow; tarsus feathered. 



Length, 10; wing, 7.25; tail, 4.50. 



Habitat, Arctic America. 



NYCTALA ACADICA (Gmelin). (372.) 

 SAW-WHET OWL. 



This species is quite common in restricted sections, and just 

 how restricted it is quite impossible to say until its distribution 

 can be further investigated. As far back as 1868, I frequently 

 visited a family residing 24 miles from the city and in the heart 

 of the Big Woods, who were familiar with this species under 

 its popular name. They assured me that it was a permanent 

 resident, breeding in woodpeckers' holes sometime in April. 

 Succeeding opportunities enabled me to confirm their state- 

 ments, and I found the bird quite common during that portion 

 of the autumn when luffed grouse shooting was the order of 

 the day. The nest is furnished with some grass, and feathers 

 occasionally. The eggs are very clear, almost translucent 

 white, and four to five in number. It is emphatically a noc- 

 turnal species, living upon small quadrupeds, birds and insects. 

 It has been reported to me by the lumbermen at several of the 

 logging camps in winter. 



The larger portion of the earlier choppers were former resi- 

 dents of Maine, where they said that the Saw-whet was a com- 

 mon species, and that they knew that this was the same, not 

 only by its general appearance but by the saw-filing note it 

 kept up in March specially. This last is a striking character- 

 istic of the species, and very familiar to observing residents of 

 the sections where they breed. They are extremely cautious 

 and sly about their breeding, but at other times they seem quite 

 confiding. The nests are more commonly placed in the forks 

 of a sapling, but occasionally in the nest of another bird or in 

 a knot- hole in a larger tree, and consists of sticks, dry leaves 

 and feathers. The eggs are layed in early April, and are three 

 in number, nearly round in outline, and pure white. The food 

 of the Saw-whets is principally insects in summer, but they eat 

 almost anything when driven to it by hunger. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Small; wings long; tail short; upper parts reddish-brown, 

 tinged with olive; head in front with fine lines of white, and 

 on the neck behind, rump and scapulars with large, partially 



