346 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



mottled legs and feet; darker and more rufescent facial disk." This 

 race is nearer in color to saturatus than to any other race, but it is not 

 quite so dark ; there is also more ochraceous and rufous in the face and 

 elsewhere in lagophonus. 



It occupies an adjacent range in the mountainous interior, north- 

 ward to the interior of Alaska. Dr. Oberholser (1904) says, however: 

 "It is possible that I err in referring to lagophonus the Alaskan speci- 

 mens of Asio from the timbered region, for it may well be that these 

 large birds are but the dark phase of algistus, yet in so far as the ma- 

 terial now available shows, save in one single instance, the difference 

 in plumage is correlated with change of area, the lighter birds being 

 confined in a general way to the Barren Grounds." As horned owls are 

 timber loving birds, it hardly seems likely that they would be anything 

 more than wanderers on the Barren Grounds; and they most certainly 

 must breed in the timbered regions. For this reason, I have treated 

 all the records from northern Alaska as referable to algistus. 



Nesting. — W. Leon Dawson (Dawson and Bowles, 1909) says: 

 "Nesting begins earlier than in the case of any other resident species, 

 and fresh eggs may be looked for by the third week in February, 

 whatever the state of the weather. Hollows in trees are sometimes 

 used, and if so, receive no lining; but old nests of hawk, magpie, or 

 crow are more commonly employed." 



On March 9, 1887, in Yakima County, he says: "I took a set of two 

 eggs well incubated, from an old nest of Swainson's Hawk, forty feet 

 high in a giant balm tree. A few weeks later I came upon a set of four, 

 laid by the same bird, in an old Crow's nest in a neighboring poplar 

 grove; and again, a month later, a set of two in another Crow's nest 

 not a hundred feet away. These last I spared, for one does not always 

 contest the rights of motherhood, even in tigers." 



Major Bendire (1892) says that "quite a number nest in the wind- 

 worn holes in sandstone and other cliffs, small caves in clay and chalk 

 bluffs," and "in some localities on the ground." 



Eggs. — The northwestern horned owl evidently lays two to four 

 eggs, which are indistinguishable from the eggs of other horned owls. 

 The measurements of 11 eggs average 54 by 44.5 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 57.1 by 44.4, 52 by 46, 51 by 44.2, 

 and 52 by 43 millimeters. 



Food. — Mr. Dawson (1909) writes: " The food of the Horned Owl in 

 Eastern Washington consists of rabbits, and all the various rodents 

 which infest meadows and sage, together with birds of many sorts, 

 especially grouse. They easily cultivate an acquaintance with the 

 poultry-yard, and if well fed, become so fastidious that they will have 

 nothing but the brains of a fowl. Naturally, this epicurean taste is 

 resented by intelligent ranchers, and the day of the Horned Owl is 

 slowly waning." 



