354 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



season's menu for our own particular owlets consisted, however, 

 mainly of cotton-tail rabbits, two of which have been seen in the 

 nest at one time. I once saw a young jack rabbit in the nest." And 

 he also observes that one nest was once supplied with a long-eared 

 owl and a sharp-tail grouse, but during the time that the young were 

 growing no other birds were eaten at the nest. 



Merriam (1891) has recorded that one killed at Saw Tooth Lake, 

 Idaho, on September 30, 1890, had in its stomach, "two Pocket 

 Gophers (Thomomys), one White-footed Mouse (Hesperomys), one 

 Field Mouse or Vole (Arvicola), and a new species of Phenacomys." 



So far as economic value is concerned, this owl, like the other west- 

 ern subspecies, seems more destructive of obnoxious forms of life than 

 of game and poultry. Donahue (1923) says: "In this instance at 

 least, though there was a chicken farm within a half mile from the 

 nesting site, poultry formed not a single part of the food fed to the 

 young. As far as I was able to find out and discover, with the excep- 

 tions of the bobwhite and the flicker already spoken of, the food of 

 the great horned owl [and three young ones] consists wholly of cot- 

 ton-tail rabbits." Warren (1911) adds even more valuable testi- 

 mony for the owl: "While staying at Gaume's ranch in the north- 

 western part of Baca County, the last of May, 1905, a pair of Horned 

 Owls had two young in a hole or small cave in the sandstone bluffs 

 which formed the back of the corrals. * * * I estimated this 

 as thirty feet above the bottom of the bluff, and ten below the 

 top. * * * The people at the ranch told me the owls had never 

 molested their poultry though there were many chickens of all sizes 

 and ages running about everywhere below the nest." 



Mr. Kelso records an instance near Aurora, Colo., where English 

 sparrows built a nest in the interstices of the owls' bundle of sticks. 

 He (1929b) also says that "Desert Sparrow Hawks, Lewis Woodpeck- 

 ers, Red-shafted Flickers and Magpies nesting in the immediate 

 vicinity were not disturbed, to my knowledge, although individuals 

 of those species were brought to the young owls for food." 



Rockwell (1908) sums up: 



It has been said and possibly it is true that the Horned Owl is the most destruc- 

 tive of North American birds, but even if this be true, it is certainly a fact that 

 what damage the comparatively few individuals of the species, to be found in 

 any given locality, really do is not sufficient to brand them as a natural menace, 

 and the amount of good they do in destroying small rodents should certainly be 

 a strong point in their favor. 



But when all other arguments for a sweeping bird protection fail to convince, 

 we can always fall back on the fundamental fact that Nature knows how to con- 

 duct her affairs very well and if those who are over-anxious to exterminate any 

 creature regarding whose economic usefulness there is a question would rest from 

 their labors of carnage and let the natural laws take their course, the ultimate 

 results would probably be fully as satisfactory. * * * Why not let a wise 

 Nature of which man is but an insignificant part rule without our interference? 



