STRIGID.E — THE OWLS. 



U3 





a^i''- 



Speotyto hypogcea. 



between the Pacific coast and the Mississippi Eiver, especially in the lower 

 plains in Nebraska and in Kansas, as well as in particular districts in Utah, 

 Arkansas, New Mexico, the Indian Territory, Texas, Arizona, California, and 

 Mexico. They are usually very abundant, congregating together in large 

 communities, and 

 diflering from most 

 members of their 

 family by living and 

 breeding in burrows 

 inthe ground. Their 

 liabits are peculiar 

 and interesting. 



Thomas Say, dur- 

 ing Colonel Long's 

 expedition to the 

 Rocky Mountains, 

 was the first of 

 American natural- 

 ists to meet with 

 this bird. He encountered it in our trans-Mississippian Territories, where 

 he described it as residing exclusively in the villages of the prairie-dog, 

 whose excavations are so commndious as to make it unnecessary for the 

 bird to dig for itself, which it is able to do when occasion retj^uires. These 

 villages are very numerous, and variable in their extent, sometimes cover- 

 ing only a few acres, and at others spreading over the surface of the coun- 

 try for miles together. They are composed of slightly elevated mounds, 

 having the form of a truncated cone, about two feet in M'idth at base, and 

 seldom rising as high as eighteen inches above the surface. 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 these animals enjoy their 

 winter's .sleep, and where they and the Owls are common, but unfriendly, 

 occupants. 



Mr. Dresser noticed this bird at all seasons, in the prairie co\intry of 

 Texas. They were rather couimon near the liio Leon and Medina, and 

 in one place he found they had taken possession of some deserted rat-holes. 

 He obtained several specimens near San Antonio and at Eagle Pass. In the 

 latter place he found them quite common on the sand plains near the town. 

 The stomachs of those he shot were found to contain coleopterous insects 

 and field-mice. 



Dr. Newberry states that he found this species in Northern California, in 

 several places between San Francisco and Fort Eeading, and again at the 

 Klamath Basin, though less frequently at tlie northward than in the Sacra- 

 mento Valley. There they oecupied the burrows made by the Beechey's 



