404 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



companies that gather when an Owl is discovered in its daytime 

 retreat in some shady evergreen." Later on, under my subheading 

 "Winter", I am giving several instances of pygmies preying on English 

 sparrows. Major Bendire (1892) speaks of a pygmy "breakfasting 

 upon a Western Tree Sparrow." H. C. Johnson notes that one Utah 

 stomach was "literally gorged with English sparrows." Dr. J. C. 

 Merrill, as quoted by Bendire (1892), says: "One captured February 

 21 had just struck at a robin and was struggling with it on the ground." 

 H. H. Kimball (1925) writes that "Mr. Bently of Portal Ranger Sta- 

 tion, Chiricahua Mts., Ariz., found a female Gambel Quail grasped 

 by the neck with both sets of claws by a small owl, the quail still 

 warm", January 21, 1925. W. L. Sclater (1912) says that one attacked 

 "a Quail, and on other occasions it has been known to pounce on a 

 Long-crested Jay and on chickens." 



In spite of this destruction of small birds by the Rocky Mountain 

 pygmy, so great is its appetite for mice, grasshoppers, and large 

 insects generally, that it is classed by Dr. A. K. Fisher (1893b) as 

 "beneficial in its ways and habits." Dr. W. H. Bergtold (1928), with 

 many additional observations to help him to a verdict, says that it is 

 "probably beneficial as a whole." Dr. Fisher lists lizards as a favorite 

 food in some places. Major Bendire (1892) mentions one at Fort 

 Klamath that occupied a willow branch over a stream for the purpose, 

 he thought, of watching for frogs. 



Dr. Elliott Coues (1874) speaks of the pygmy's fondness for insects. 

 He says that specimens secured at Fort Whipple, Ariz., had their 

 stomachs "filled with fragments of grasshoppers and beetles, some of 

 which were yet scarcely altered by digestion, showing that they 

 must have been very recently captured. Each of the birds was killed 

 about noon." 



Behavior. — When one reads through the literature about this owl, 

 he is at once struck with the divergent views of the different observers. 

 Dr. Coues (1874) gives us a very interesting early account of this 

 bird on the basis of two specimens obtained at Fort Whipple. He 

 says, frankly, that he is not very familiar with it, and he then gives 

 a summary of habits as he surmises they will be found to be. How 

 different this bird has proved to be from these early surmises ! In the 

 first place, although ornithologists most familiar with the pygmy say 

 that it is common, it is astonishing how few are the actual references 

 to it. Dr. H. E. Anthony writes me in the letter dated October 5, 

 1933: "I think that probably these little owls may be more abundant 

 than most casual observers imagine because they may be in low trees 

 and bushes and are mistaken, when they fly out, for robins, thrushes, 

 or common species. When they are not flushed they sit so tight that 

 the eye does not pick them up readily." Perhaps another reason for 

 the pygmy's escaping general notice is its preference for the daylight 



