334 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



squirrels and birds, though it is said to eat insects freely in its summer 

 home. 



Specimens are not numerous in our collections. The Agricultural 

 College Museum has three, one taken by Major Boies on Neebish Island, 

 October 27, 1894, and two taken in Mackinac county, near Trout Lake, 

 by the late Percy Selous, one November 5, and the other November 10, 

 1896. Prof. H. L. Clark writes us that there is a specimen in the Olivet 

 College museum which was killed there, and in 1903 we saw two mounted 

 specimens in a store at Sault Ste. Marie, which were killed near by. One 

 was killed at Port Huron about November 17, 1905, and another November 

 6, 1906, and mounted by Eppinger of Detroit. Mr. Albert Hirzel, Forest- 

 ville, Sanilac county, mounted one in December 1906, which was killed 

 in the Upper Peninsula. 



The nesting ground of this species lies mainly north of the United States, 

 but in 1905 members of a biological survey party from the University of 

 Michigan took a young bird, able to fly, but still partly "in the down," 

 making it very probable that it was reared in the vicinity. The locality 

 was Isle Royale, Lake Superior, and the date August 4, 1905. An adult 

 Hawk Owl was seen near by but was too wary to be taken Adams, Ecolo- 

 gical Survey of Isle Royale, 1905, pp. 92, 353. Annual Rep. Mich. Board 

 of Geol. Survey, 1908). 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Rather small; ear-tufts (plumicorns) lacking; facial disk poorly developed, making the 

 face hawk-Uke; feet heavily feathered; outer three or foxir primaries emarginate on inner 

 webs; tail strongly graduated; iris deep yellow; beak nearly white; claws black. 



Adult: Top of head black, thickly sprinkled with small rounded, pure white dots; 

 cheeks white or grayish white, bounded posteriorly by a broad black bar or stripe which 

 extends downward on the side of the throat, meeting its fellow from the other side, thus 

 forming a black collar; two other black stripes bound the sides of the occiput and hind 

 neck; rest of upper parts chocolate brown to sooty black, profusely spotted with white, 

 the spots running into a rather conspicuous bar on the outer edge of the scapulars on 

 each side; under jsarts regularly and closely barred with pure white and brown or blackish, 

 except across the chest where the dark bars are scanty or wanting; tail like the back, 

 each feather with paired white spots, forming about five or six narrow white bars. 



Yoimg: Much browner or more buffy, with fewer spots above, and the barring below 

 more indistinct. 



Length 14.75 to 17.50 inches; wing about 9; tail 6.80 to 7. 



