356 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



therefore likely the female's, was a little the more frequent and 

 vicious. The viciousness of the attacks seemed to increase with the 

 increase in age of the nestlings. V. L. Marsh writes us: "On April 22, 

 I made an attempt to get to the nest. I was stretched out on the 

 face of the cliff when the female swooped down and drove a pair of 

 sharp claws into the back of my horse-hide coat. About 15 feet behind 

 her came the male, but he veered off past me as I let out a loud yell. 

 I don't know why I had that leather coat on, but I always wore it 

 after that." 



Although the Montana horned owl normally roosts during the day 

 in thick tree foliage, Kelso (1930) says: "A trait that I had not 

 observed before in these birds was their roosting among the grasses 

 and weeds on the damp ground below the trees during the hot days 

 of June." 



Voice. — The Montana horned owl has the usual note of horned 

 owls, a loud, mellow Whoo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo, a stirring night sound that 

 is ever thrilling to lovers of the wilder aspects of nature. 



Once, while I was in camp at the upper end of the Slough Creek 

 meadows in Yellowstone Park, a Montana horned owl came and 

 alighted, at dusk, on a tall fir, where it went through the motions of 

 hooting, although no sound issued from its beak. Most of the time 

 its horns lay back on its head, but once or twice it erected them. I 

 do not think that it saw me, but it kept turning its head to look 

 away from me down the open valley. At another time, I heard an 

 adult owl on a dead lodgepole pine utter a whistling cry. 



When the old birds dived at me, they snapped their bills and hissed 

 while still some distance away. This snapping was an angry, threat- 

 ening sound easily heard when the coming birds were still a hundred 

 feet away. Kelso (1930) has given an excellent account of sounds at 

 a nest: "On March 23 [1923], the female was sitting. * * * At 

 7:35 p. m., the male came to the nest and a conversation of deep 

 whoo-whoo's followed, lasting for ten seconds or more. Also one of 

 the birds uttered a shrill chee-chee-chee call." [The young were 

 hatched during the third week of April.] 



On the night of April 27, the female was hovering the young. At 7:00 p. m. 

 a muffled chee-chee began coming from the nest, with, occasionally, a harsh rasping 

 note. After about five minutes, the mother owl arose, stood on the edge of the 

 nest for a second, and then flew away over an open field to the south, uttering the 

 rasping call as she went. The notes of the young bird became louder and more 

 continuous, resembling the cheeping of a young chick. At 8:05 p. m. the mother 

 returned, evidently with some article of food, for the owlet was silent from then 

 on. * * * While watching the nest May 28, one of the parents was seen to 

 alight on it at about 9:00 p. m. * * * After a few minutes the adult flew 

 down the creek. The young owl called after it a rasping peerahhh and the parent 

 answered by the same note. This calling and replying continued about five 

 minutes, the sounds varying in length and sharpness, sometimes amounting to a 

 scream. A parent once uttered a whistling whee-whee note. A short period of 



