406 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



its presence is any evidence, this little raptor, no larger than many of 

 them, must be one of their worst enemies. Its friends would call it 

 courageous and determined; its enemies, ferocious and blood thirsty." 



Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Arnold, of Yellowstone Park, had the good 

 fortune to keep one for a few days in winter, and wrote in the mimeo- 

 graphed Nature Notes from Yellowstone Park: "This little fellow was 

 quite friendly. * * * His demeanor was that of dwarf members 

 of many families — decidedly pompous and self-sufficient. * * * 

 When our old cat walked sedately into the room, the cat crouched 

 low and 'froze,' all the time making nervous little sounds and the 

 Pygmy turned his head so far around we felt he must wring his own 

 neck." 



The flight is not at all owllike but more on the order of the sparrow 

 hawk, or even more like a shrike's. The pygmy watches from an 

 elevated perch for prey below it and pounces down upon it. When 

 going from perch to perch, it flies like a shrike, dropping from its 

 perch, buzzing along just above the ground, and rising sharply to its 

 new perch. Its flight is more noisy than other owls. Perhaps some 

 of these peculiarities are due to the diurnal habits of the Rocky 

 Mountain pygmy. 



Voice. — The majority of the notes uttered by this pygmy are de- 

 cidedly musical and hence not at all like other owls'. Most hearers 

 have noted the resemblance of its commonest notes to the cooing of 

 the mourning dove. My own experience has been that while the 

 notes are short and repeated like a dove's, and there is at least a 

 suggestion of the dove's rolling effect, still the pygmy's notes are 

 somewhat sharper, and each note more distinct, than the dove's. 



When Theodore Roosevelt and John Burroughs first heard one of 

 these owls in the Yellowstone National Park, they could not at first 

 believe that it was an owl. Roosevelt (1904) says: "We had seen a 

 pygmy owl no larger than a robin sitting on top of a pine in broad day- 

 light, and uttering at short intervals a queer, un-owllike cry." Bur- 

 roughs (1906) wrote: "It was such a sound as a boy might make by 

 blowing in the neck of an empty bottle." Mrs. Bailey (1928) says the 

 note of an immature female "was a long whistle followed by a cuckoo- 

 like cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck." 



The pygmy owl seems to be most vocal during the spring and early 

 summer months, although a few individuals may continue throughout 

 the summer. Dr. Mearns (1890) says: "Its pleasant note was 

 heard in the pine-trees overhead nearly every night while I was explor- 

 ing the San Francisco group of mountains." Major Bendire says the 

 notes were heard "usually shortly after sundown." On the other hand, 

 all other observers that mention the time of day say that the notes 

 are uttered during daylight, preferably early in the morning or late in 

 the afternoon. 



